Abstract
Under the keen competition between industries worldwide, the products' improvement cycle and the model-change cycle become shorter and shorter. In such circumstances, the facility life cycle also becomes shorter in automated production lines. In consequence, the facility life cycle cost increases. To cope with that, we have developed so called the 'Protean Production System (PPS)', which can have longer life and lower facility life cycle cost than existing production systems. The PPS is attributed by several unique features such as 'Lot Circulation Flow System', 'Function Divided Modules' and 'Plug and Play techniques', and has been applied to our plant since 1998.
