A key feature-based method for the configuration design of a reconfigurable inspection system

A reconfigurable manufacturing system (RMS) can provide a customised manufacturing process to complete changes in operational requirements or machine status. The effective development of an RMS is supported by dynamic reconfiguration management that detects errors in the process and explores the reconfiguration strategy. However, existing studies on reconfiguration focus on production while ignoring inspection. In the RMS, a reconfigurable inspection system (RIS) is developed for data-oriented detection of product quality with the minimally sufficient number of inspection machines. We propose a key feature-based method for designing the RIS's configuration to achieve a satisfactory RIS design, which detects different processes and satisfies the inspection requirement for each phase of the RMS's lifecycle. The key features of the RIS (i.e. modularity, integrability, customisation, scalability, convertibility and diagnosability) are identified based on the RMS's detection mechanism. An example of the RMS for a spindle box is presented to validate the method.