[in Japanese]

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This paper presents the capability profiling methodology which admits vendor/supplier-specific multiple capability class structures which has been proposed. This capability profiling methodology uses domain-specific manufacturing domain data (MDD) as a semantic information to describe the computer-readable capability of manufacturing activities. Since both the features of required manufacturing activities and also the realized/implemented manufacturing software units (MSUs) can be expressed using MDDs belonging to the same manufacturing domain, the similarity of features among the required manufacture activities and realized MSUs can be verifiable automatically. The purpose of this methodologies is reducing the production cost and information management cost of users and vendors/suppliers of manufacture application system by providing the framework which will facilitate the way of reuse among MSUs which will fulfills the required software specification in the domain.

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This paper discusses a supply-chain simulation system that combines discrete-event models with system-dynamics models. Supply-chain systems include several different types of operational processes, such as manufacturing, sourcing, delivering, and their operational planning. Simulation of supply-chain should represent both such business processes and enterprise management activities, and etc. This paper proposes a framework of a compound simulation model that can represent such complex supply-chain operations combining with social systems environment.

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In this research, we focus on a union of a real world and a simulation world to reduce a design lead-time of manufacturing systems. In this paper, we firstly describe current problems for manufacturing design processes using manufacturing system simulation. Secondly in order to solve the problems, a facility simulation environment which includes a soft-wiring system and a 3D manufacturing cell simulator is proposed. The necessary functions of the soft-wiring system and the simulator are defined. We developed two systems. Finally a case study was carried out with cooperation.

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Recently, collaborative simulation environment is needed in the mechatoronics product design. In this research, a systematic collaborative simulation environment is proposed using HLA (High Level Architecture) which is the IEEE standard of a distributed simulation. In this report, an omni-directional electric wheelchair is joined to a federation as one federate, and the verification of acceleration control system is done. SILS (Software-in-the-loop) and HILS (Hardware-in-the-loop Simulation) using HLA can shorten the time until preparing the simulation and obtain more accurate simulation results.

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This paper proposes a guideline on the high operability interfaces of 3-D Computer-Aided Design systems by evaluating the operability of commercial 3-D CAD systems. The evaluation is conducted by the key-stroke-level-model which is derived by counting the number of keyboarding and mouse-clicking. In this study, six 3D-CAD systems are used for analyzing the operability and usability. It is proposed that sketch operations should be improved to get the high operability and usability.

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With the progress of 3D scanning technology and storing mesh data to 3D model databases, the use of the meshes obtained by scanning and DB querying in CAE have been strongly required in addition to those obtained from traditional meshing of solid models. In this paper, we introduce our multiresolution mesh modeling system that can satisfy above requirements. Our system includes the functions that allow us to use several kinds of meshes in the CAE ; mesh properties control, mesh density control, feature suppression, and mesh combining. The effective use of them in the CAE is also described.

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This paper deals with a real-time scheduling method of the Holonic Manufacturing Systems (HMSs). A real-time scheduling process based on the utility values have been proposed and applied to the HMSs in the previous report. The holons in the HMSs are divided into two classes based on their roles in the manufacturing processes. They are, automatic machine tool holons which transform the jobs, and job holons which are transformed by the automatic machine tool from the blank materials to the final products. AGV holons and labor holons in the HMSs are newly considered in this report AGV holons transport the jobs ; labor holons transport the jobs and also transform the jobs.

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In this paper, we apply a neural network to the real-time scheduling of a semiconductor manufacturing system. Because it is very difficult to train the neural network using large-scale semiconductor manufacturing systems, we use a small-scale model of the manufacturing system for training. In order to compensate for the discrepancy between the models, a target-cycle-time tunable after training is used for scheduling. Numerical experiments show that the proposed method outperforms the dispatching rule proposed in the literature.

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This study deals with a decentralized scheduling method based on the recursive propagation method, which is proposed by the author, in order to construct next generation manufacturing systems. Schrage job sequence is introduced to the scheduling procedure and the performance of the schedule is improved. The proposed method is evaluated by the computer simulations to solve the Muth and Thompson's 10×10 job shop scheduling problem. It gives a better scheduling result compared with the previous proposed method.

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Manufacturing systems are required to change the manufacturing performance, such as manufacturing volume and cycle time, since consumer's needs change continuously. A new flexible manufacturing system called cellular manufacturing systems was proposed in order to satisfy this requirement. Cellular manufacturing systems need a suitable control method to change the manufacturing performance in case of unforeseen changes, such as delays of manufacturing processes. This research proposes a dynamic reallocation method of workers in cellular manufacturing systems by using Genetic Algorithm. This method provides new allocations of workers dynamically in order to minimize the maximum tardiness of jobs in consideration of learning of workers. A prototype of reallocation support system was developed to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

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This paper proposes a problem definition, modeling, and approach to production planning problems in manufacturers who have build-to-order (BTO) or finish-to-order (FTO) production systems. Especially, Master Production Scheduling (MPS) is the target of this paper, focusing a product family that has variety of different final products. This paper shows equations for inventory level in several perspectives, so as to clarify Available-To-Promise (ATP) by considering the order management. Using ATP, the paper discusses a sophisticated algorithm that decides whether or not a customer order is accepted. Finally, concluding remarks shows many future works.

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This paper deals with a messaging method among distributed factories in order to make collaborative scheduling. Some application systems on Web-based technologies have a scheduler, which makes an entire schedule and distributes it to each factory. Others may be different, where each factory has a distributed scheduler that receives production orders from an order management system. Both cases need to have a suitable process for any unexpected situations such as late delivery. This paper reports some implementation results of a messaging system, which has push and pull protocols in accordance with the PSLX specifications.

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This paper describes a new approach to an adaptive lot release scheduling using genetics based machine learning (GBML) in a semiconductor manufacturing system. The proposed method employs a scheduling agent with a classifier system (CS) to release materials onto the production floor properly according to the state of the production floor. Effectiveness of the proposed GBML based lot release method is discussed by using results of the computer simulations in terms of not only productivity but also adaptability to the production demand change.

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This paper deals with a real-time scheduling system of the Holonic Manufacturing Systems (HMSs). In the previous papers, real-time scheduling processes based on the utility values have been proposed and applied to the HMSs. A simulation based procedure has also been implemented to estimate the future status of HMSs and to determine the utility values aiming at improving scheduling method. However, it was assumed that only one holon in the HMSs carries out the estimation, in the previous research, for the ease of the estimation process. A simulation based real-time scheduling method is newly proposed, in the paper, to improve the objective function values by estimating the future status of HMSs by all the holons. Some case studies of the real-time scheduling are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

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Recently, the demand for precision machining of dies and molds which have complex shapes has been increasing. Even CNC machine tools are utilized widely for machining, still machining error compensation is required to meet the requirement of machining accuracy. However, the machining error compensation is a skilful operation which takes huge amount of time and cost. In this research, the way of the machining error compensation is proposed. The 3D surface data of the machined part is modified according to the machining error measured by CMM (Coordinate Measuring Machine). A newly NC program is generated from the modified 3D surface data for the machining error compensation.

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One of the most important performance indices of the machine tools is the machining accuracy in the multi-axis machining process. Therefore, it is required to establish systematic analysis and design methods for the multi-axis machine tools, from the viewpoint of the machining accuracy of the complicated products. The objective of the research is to establish mathematical models representing the shape generation motion deviations of machine tools, on the basis of the geometric deviations of the relative motion between a pair of connecting units with respect to the priority of the geometric features. A case study on the kinematic motion deviations of the three-axis machining centre is carried out with the proposed method.

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Capabilities and complexity of manufacturing systems are increasing and striving for an integrated manufacturing environment. Availability of alternative process plans is a key factor for integration of design, process planning and scheduling. This paper describes a methodology for generation of alternative process plans by extending the existing framework of the process plan network. An incomplete search algorithm is developed for generating and searching the process plan network. This algorithm is applicable to large and enormous process plan network and also to expand different areas based on the user requirement. The algorithm can generate alternative process plans and optimize them based on the objective function.

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An evaluation system of product accuracies for end mill operation is introduced. This system consists of three modules: a machine tool simulator, geometric simulator and physical simulator. In this paper, a geometric model of a machining center to estimate cutting point errors, a machining error model due to tool deformations and a calculation method for copying the errors to workpiece is described. The feasibility of the developed system is also demonstrated by a simple machining example.

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Market Oriented Programming (MOP) is a kind of technique to achieve an efficient distribution of the resources by using the concept of the neo-classical economics. The scheduling model based on the MOP has been proposed and verified its efficiency under the static conditions. In this paper, we enhance our scheduling system with MOP into the dynamic situations and analyze its characteristics with computer experiments.

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Unscheduled delays of manufacturing processes often occur in the manufacturing systems, and an initial production schedule may not satisfy the constraints of make-span. Reactive scheduling method is one of the scheduling methods to cope with such delays effectively. In this research, new reactive scheduling method was proposed to modify an initial schedule by monitoring the progress of manufacturing processes consistently.

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Cutting conditions are very significant parameters for process efficiency and quality in cutting operations. However, the decision of cutting conditions is depend too much on experience and know-how of skillful engineers, because of the difficulty to select suitable cutting conditions. In this research, the expert system based on Case-Based Reasoning is developed to select cutting conditions by processing case data which contain experience and know-how of skillful engineers. This system aims to adapt to the case data for selecting the user oriented cutting conditions.

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In upstream design, we generate a blueprint as a preparatory step in deciding on the concept of shape. This process is important in forming the whole design object. When we construct a shape image, a negotiation occurs between the linguistic world and the shape world. Our purpose is to support conceptual design by bridging natural language and shapes. First, we analyzed a linguistic data about shape. Next we proposed Linguistic Relations Model (LRM) as linguistic structural model. Then we elected Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG) as shape structural presentation. Finally we matched between language and shape by statistical approach.

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In this paper we described the Bill of Material (BOM) with Abductive function for Life Cycle Design. We already built an abduction BOM that have the embedded knowledge that is made from current BOM for the CTO/BTO products, for which the knowledge can be captured through the business process. We propose to use the Abductive BOM with designer for the modulization in the abduction design process that defines renewed artificial design process from the product Life Cycle Design strategy.

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An evolutionary Multi-Agent System is discussed as an autonomous decentralized system in which each agent is capable of adapting to its embodied environment by means of artificial evolution. This type of system is a promising approach to adaptive system design, although it is undoubtedly difficult to analyze what they are doing or how they interact with each other to achieve a given task. Moreover, it is also difficult to understand how they evolved their function. In this paper, the ecological method is experimentally applied to a multi-agent system to analyze the system dynamics. A food collecting problem is selected to illustrate how to use the ecological method to grasp characteristics of agents in a Multi-Agent System. After showing the result of the analysis, we succeeded in improving the Multi-Agent System based on the analysis of the characteristic of the evolved behavior.

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"Contract based Production Control System: CPCS" has already been proposed as the concrete mechanism of production control in Distributed Autonomous Production System. In CPCS, each job and machine has functions of decision-making and conversation. A job makes an execution contract of job's operation with the selected machine. The product is produced by repeating to make contracts. In this paper, we developed "Setup planning function", which is the function of operation planning for machine, in order to realize CPCS concretely in machining shop. The function can estimate the accurate operation procedure and operation time by considering real-time condition of each machine & each job. For its development, we designed "Operation planning algorism" for short calculation time.

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Recently, concerns on CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) have been raised and legal regulations for the environment have spread. Companies are required to disclose how the production activities give influences on the environment. Under this situation, information management systems that can manage chemical substances included not only in the final product, but also intermediate products, byproducts and consumed energy, are required. Such systems must be able to trace each lot from products up to composing materials and vice versa for risk management. The purposes of this research are to design a process and product model for batch production, and to develop a prototype of a batch production information management system that can accommodate environmental CSR. We first designed a model as a set of process elements that contain substance and energy information that is required for accommodating environmental CSR. Then, we developed a system on Object-Relational database management system, and verified traceability that specifies material lot number from product lot number.

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Recently, maintenance support systems with the Internet are used by several machine tool vendors. However, these maintenance support systems are depending upon each particular machine tool vendors. Moreover most methods of these maintenance systems are only monitoring of Open NC's console. Then, these maintenance systems can not handle other resources such as tools, materials and maintenance documents. Therefore, in this research proposed a portal collaboration type operation and maintenance support system which can handle not only controller's information but also other resources such as tools, materials and documents. This paper describes a concept of the portal collaboration type operation and maintenance support system and document management system which collaborates with 3-D remote monitoring system as one component of the system.

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This paper deals with a new agent system that promotes reuse and recycle processes by retrieving product and market information, presenting information for lifecycle option, and supplying contract procedure. With respect to some kinds of electrical products and cars, particular recycle systems have been built by government in Japan. However, regarding other products, users' activity for reuse and recycle is a necessary factor to increase recovery rate. In this paper, a new agent-based information system that supports the users' reuse and recycle activities with interaction among user, product and market is proposed. The system includes an interface agent that changes the behavior to adapt to user property. Each agent behavior is defined and whole agent interaction is shown. And the realization of this system is discussed with a case study using a developed prototype system.

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Modeling of worker's skill is important to plan worker development. This paper deals with an application of the worker model to workers' training plan in production scheduling. As of skillful work such as maintenance, only technical experts who have reached a certain level are allowed to execute the tasks. Because the number of certified workers effects on the production efficiency, the training plan is an important factor for long-term production management. In previous work, an agent-based scheduling system that distributes tasks to workers considering workers' training plan has been developed. In this paper, the effect of the learning factor that can control OJT frequency and the long-term change of the number of certified workers are discussed with some case studies by using the prototype system.

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Environmental issues become more and more important recently, and establishment of a global recycling system including Asian countries (e.g., China, Vietnam etc.) as well as that of domestic recycling system is quite important. One major advantage of a global recycling system is efficiency in resource utilization. There exist significant disparity in economic situations among Asian countries, and this makes it possible to utilize resources more efficiently via second-hand market and remanufacturing/recycling processes with low labor cost. However, the difference in environmental regulations and recycling technology may result in the movement of environmental pollution. Therefore, adequate design and control of a global recycling system is eagerly required. This paper reports current situation of recycling process in China based on a field survey executed in 20005, and discusses fundamental problems from the viewpoint of a global recycling system.

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In a construction production, management of various kinds of parts/units under corroboration project with various conditions such as status, position, attributes, construction order, delivery order, and so on. That makes difficult to grasps and manages construction projects by traditional production systems. In this study, details of actual construction processes management are found by listening comprehension for a general conductor and a parts/units maker. Then demands in construction process management are extracted. From these results, architecture and process flow of construction management system is proposed by using RFID.

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The "list-based squeezing branch and bound (LSQ) algorithm" is a kind of local search algorithms, which searches neighborhood of an initial schedule in an enumerative manner by using a branching procedure in a branch and bound algorithm (B & B) in parallel. In the LSQ, some initial schedules are found first by using promising heuristic methods, and then a B & B-based parallel local search is implemented for obtaining an optimal (or a near-optimal) schedule. In this paper, the LSQ is applied to n-job, m-machine flowshop scheduling problems to minimize makespan. A new procedure for selecting promising nodes to be branched is proposed and incorporated into the searching process of the LSQ to improve the efficiency and accuracy. Numerical experiments are implemented through benchmark problems to demonstrate that the proposed method can efficiently obtain a near optimal schedule with high accuracy.

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In manufacturing environments, human-computer intelligent systems have evolved in several design areas. However, little has been done in the area of scheduling although a symbiotic relationship between human and computer (system) would be more powerful than either would be alone. This paper deals with interactive scheduling approaches from the viewpoint of human interface through which flexible and efficient problem-solving can be done by exchanging seamlessly information between a human scheduler and a scheduling system. We mainly discuss the position of a human scheduler in interactive decision-making process. Through basic computational experiments, we demonstrate the applicability of interactive scheduling.

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Supply chain management (SCM) improves efficiency of supply chains (SC) in terms of reduction of inventory and lead time. To the contrary, however, the pursuit of efficiency results in the vulnerability of SC and accelerates propagation of damage of risk incidents such as earthquake and factory fire. Therefore, supply chain risk management has become an important topic in SCM. In this paper, we propose a modeling method to represent a propagation of effects of risk incidents. In the proposed model, the SC is represented in terms of processes and resources used in the processes. The propagation of effects of risk incidents can be represented in such a way that risk incidents induce malfunction of resources, which then leads to malfunction of processes. An example of a model, which represents effects of earthquake to a manufacturing process, is described.

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The very dynamic linkage between living process and its housing environment makes it hard to realize a highly secured, flexible and intelligent management method, which is so much desired. It is not perhaps even possible to its full realization, unless it succeeds to decouple the inherent coupling between living and housing. One possible solution to decouple them at least locally is to unify "parts and packets" via ubiquitous distribution of RFID over housing parts and environment in-situ, for the chip-implanted parts or environment behave as if they spontaneously send messages to their proper addresses to communicate at will, whenever their state are changed, and move around freely within the housing system as if each of them provides its local coordinate of reference that makes it possible to realize the 4+1 dynamic management system of housing assets.

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This paper describes an implementation of the Integrated Construction Process Management System, which includes manufacturing process management features for building parts, and also includes construction process management features at construction site. To observe the flow of the building parts, RFIDs are stuck to all of the parts and work-in-processes (WIPs) to be managed, and several checkpoints, which we named "gates", are introduced within the coherent process through part-manufacturing and building construction. This system gathers production data by reading RFIDs on managed objects, and analyzes the data with event-driven data processing system, which is built on the real-time control infrastructure system, which we named "Glue Logic." The trial implementation of this management system was built and tested in an actual construction site, and its feasibility and effectiveness were confirmed.

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Maintenance of qulity, reduction of cost, adjustment of delivery time, assurance of safety and health are the items of the important site management in the construction progress. In order to manage such objects efficiently, accurately collection the concrete details of works and plan for solving the problem are indispensable. In this paper, the author explained the overview of method for collecting location information for development of a monitornig system for project progress management using RFID technology. Location information of member, worker and equipment were proposed as an element necessary for site management. In order to collect the location information of member efficiently, it was mentioned that the attachment method of a tag and specification should change with production methods. The information about a worker's position is very effective also in a safety control, and it was said that it was applicable to the monitor of entry to a hazardous area, identification of use of protective gear, etc. Moreover, it was described that identification of stock using Location information and account of installation conditions are necessary for management of temporary material because it is diverted for each site in many cases and installation and diassembly are performed during work. Collected location information was united with real things and it was shown that visualizing on-site conditions using VR technology is an effective tool which assists management.

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This paper describes a method for estimation of pose (position and orientation) of large objects such as construction materials using multiple ID devices attached to the objects for construction automation. Object-pose tracking is crucial issue for integration of the objects and their information via ID devices since the workers or robots that do not have ID reader can change the object pose. The method uses the position and orientation of the ID reader with respect to the reference coordination frame. This paper focuses on the simplification of the estimation model to apply the method to the real environment. Experimental results show feasibility of the proposed method.

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Safety & security are crucial issue in every aspect of the modern society. The robot application is one of the promising solutions to achieve automated efficient monitoring. With the advancement of RFID technology robots are capable of obtaining more intelligence and more flexibility. The idea presented here is based on the collaboration between robot and intelligent RFID in order to sense and monitor target facilities, systems, and environments more accurately and widely. Preliminary experiments have been done to confirm the feasibility of the idea.

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The goal of our research project is to analyze and discuss the proposed "ubiquitous functions", which is the conceptual criterion focused on the original functions itself of distributed substance and non-substance objects, and optimize and design these functions individually or cooperatively for particular applications in the human life environments.

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In this paper, a function changeable RT system, which consist of distributed RT functions to adapt to varied environment change like human living environments, will be discussed. Unlike an industry field like a factory, the human living environment is dynamically changed. The robot system is dynamically adapted according to environment changes. However, it is difficult to design a RT system in advance so that the RT system can adapt to any environment change. If the RT system can be easily integrated and customized by own user, all users can get the suitable robot system for own environment and demand. The function changeable RT system with RT-middleware architecture and "Ubiquitous robot" concept is one of the solutions to the above problem. The RT system consists of networked function modules in parallel. Its hardware configuration can be obtained from RFID on the function module. As the demonstration, the cleaner robot, which consists of distributed function, will be shown.

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