Lee Keun Ho
Judy M. Vance
Iowa Center for Emerging Manufacturing Technology
Iowa State University
Ames, IA
Deneb User Group IX Meeting Proceedings, Ypsilanti, MI, Oct. 9-13, 1995.
Abstract
Computer-controlled manufacturing systems have been adopted by major industries over the last few years to provide manufacturing flexibility and increased product quality. Small manufacturers can also benefit from implementing these advanced manufacturing technologies in their organizations, but are often impeded by the lack of skilled workers. Local area community colleges possess the educational structure to train these workers but not the state-of-the-art equipment necessary for hands-on training. The desired training is by it’s nature very resource intensive. State-of-the-art manufacturing equipment is very expensive and out of the range of the average community college equipment budget. Simulation-based training can be implemented to provide cost effective training on a wide variety of manufacturing tools. Libraries of equipment models can be developed and upgraded as new machines are introduced to the marketplace. In addition, simulation-based training provides a safe environment where novice machine tool operators can learn without fear of injury to themselves or the equipment. Because of the safe environment, a larger student-to-instructor ratio can be maintained, resulting in further cost savings. Also, with each student at a workstation, students are not restricted to operate the machinery in groups and therefore each student can gain individual experience programming the machines. This paper presents the organization, development, and operation of software that has been created to train manufacturing technicians to operate computer-controlled manufacturing systems. The software is based on Deneb’s TELEGRIP simulation software and OSF/Motif software.
An image of the developed training interface. For a more information on this project, refer to the Research Project: Training Manufacturing Technicians Using Virtual Machine Tools.
