2001 Volume 52 Issue 1 Pages 60-67
The authors presented in their previous paper a method of exhaustively enumerating alternative ways of performing assembly-type work, given a series of work steps together with the appropriate information on all parts and equipment involved in it. The basic idea in the above is the representation of a work process by a series of states and intervening changes. This representation consists of(1)a diagram which shows parts, hands, equipments and means of supporting them in any given state : This is called a State Diagram : and(2)a diagram which shows any given change between adjoining states : This is called Change Diagram. These two diagrams form a series of States/Change Transition Diagrams. This paper presents a method of expressing, the above-mentioned series of States/Change Transition Diagrams as a series of matrices. The matrix is, formed in such a way that the enumeration process can be handled by a computer, and the matrix operation makes it possible to uniquely define the relationship between a state and a change. Moreover, as it is naturally conceivable, by using this matrix operation, a series of States/Change Transition Diagrams can be efficiently constructed by the system. This method is not identical with the knowledge representation employed in the field of artificial intelligence, but rather uniquely fit to the depiction of assembly-type work structures.
