Pilot plants to assist FMS/CIM evaluation, design and industrial applications

A CAD-oriented and a CAM-oriented CIM pilot plant are implemented ind Budapest, Hungary to assist research, development and education, and to help industrial engineers and managers to get a better understanding of CAD/CAM/CIM technologies. In the first part of the paper a short account is given on Hungarian R&D and implementation activities in the field of FMS and industrial networks. Then details of the main goals and the structures of the pilot plants are given. As design is one of the most important issues, at a given design and simulation aspects of flexible manufacturing cells/systems are touched upon. Finally, experiments are discussed, the evaluation of which should give information on manufacturing strategies of planned, future FMS/CIM investments.