Abstract
“Virtual Manufacturing” is one of the most effective techniques to make a model of manufacturing systems and simulate manufacturing processes. In this paper, Virtual Shop Floor (VSF) is investigated as a first step to make Virtual Manufacturing Systems. VSF is a computer system which supports designing and operating desirable shop floors in various manufacturing environments. A new concept of Open System Architecture for Virtual Shop Floor (OSAViS) is proposed, in order to make VSF fast enough, so as to be able to follow the changes of a manufacturing environment. OSAViS is an architecture for making a modularized and distributed VSF. The modularization of the system enables us to build the various shop floor models with the combination of various modules. The distributed simulation can be performed fast, because it executes simulations of the shop floor in parallel. In this paper, a basic concept of OSAViS is explained. A model of a shop floor, a way of making each module (named VSF Module), and a framework of a distributed parallel simulation system are investigated.
