ABSTRACT
The manufacturing industry has a significant impact on a country’s economic prosperity. Its importance to the U.S. economy can be judged by the fact that at the close of the twentieth century, manufacturing accounted for one-fifth of the nation’s gross domestic product and employed 17% of the U.S. workforce. Control methods and technologies are utilized in the manufacturing industry at several levels. At the system level, manufacturing controls are used to achieve maximum efficiency and to eradicate waste wasted resources. Techniques such as lean manufacturing and six-sigma are used at the machining systems level to achieve such objectives. However, the focus of this chapter is primarily on the various control methodologies applied at the machine level. A manufacturing plant is typically composed of many, and varied, machine tools. Machine tools are used for machining operations, where unnecessary material is removed from the workpiece to produce the desired part shape.
