ABSTRACT
The factory of the future (FOF), paperless factories, robotics, computer control, just-in-time manufacturing, group technology, unattended manufacturing, and so on-all of these topics are being presented at seminars, conferences and other technical presentations as the "wave of the future" which will salvage the manufacturing community from oblivion. Even though there may be a considerable amount of hype in some of these claims, there are facilities at which these technologies are being implemented. At the same time, the other end of the technology/automation spectrum is often a better descriptor of the state of much of the manufacturing community. There are still a lot of manufacturing operations in existence for which NC is just beginning to be benefically applied. Of course, a common road block on the path to achieving CIM in every shop is that the technical and financial resources available to usher in the factory of the future varies widely among different installations. In addition, management is often reluctant to allocate relatively large expenditures for something which varies so drastically from the historical method of operation.
