Center for Integrated Manufacturing Decision Systems: an overview

Abstract

The Center for Integrated Manufacturing Decision Systems at Carnegie Mellon University has been created to perform research in intelligent decision systems for engineering and manufacturing problem solving. The Center's research has two goals: to increase the quality of decisions at each stage of the production manufacturing life cycle, including design, planning, production, distribution, and field service, and to achieve an order-of-magnitude increase in decision making quality by focusing on planning and control systems, which integrate decision making throughout the enterprise. The center has created seven laboratories, each focusing on a portion of engineering/manufacturing decision making: design (the rapid and integrated design of electromechanical parts); production planning (integrating process and facility planning); rapid manufacturing (automating unit process planning programming and control); automated factory scheduling (predictive and reactive detailed scheduling); manufacturing logistics (parts on demand); intelligent measurement and control (multiple process focus); and manufacturing system architecture (representation and communication of factory knowledge and control). Issues and goals for each laboratory are described.