Virtual manufacturing for press line monitoring and diagnostics

Virtual manufacturing, or manufacturing simulation, can be divided into three domains: product domain, process domain, and resource domain. This paper focuses on the use of virtual manufacturing for press line monitoring and diagnostics. It contains an introduction to virtual manufacturing, divided into a general part on modelling and simulation, verification, validation and acceptance, and the division into the three domains, as well as a specific part on the use of simulation in these domains for sheet metal products, processes and processing equipment. The main software tools discussed in this paper are discrete event simulation and computer-aided robotics; the designed and implemented machine service support system is an example of advanced use of three-dimensional (3-D) graphical simulation in the resource domain. This system offers remote on-line monitoring and diagnostics functions as well as media player-type functions such as replay that allow a service and maintenance expert to analyse disturbances that occur at remote locations. A key feature of the system is 3-D graphical simulation with I/O synchronisation. This type of system is particularly useful for system integrators and machine builders that install press lines and press cells world-wide and need to guarantee a high level of availability of the installed machinery.