Information-Control Problems in Manufacturing Technology contains the proceedings of an international symposium on "Information-Control Problems in Manufacturing Technology" held in Tokyo, Japan, on October 17-20, 1977 under the auspices of the International Federation of Automatic Control. The symposium provided a forum for discussing various engineering and technical problems in the automation of every step of the manufacturing process including design, machining, material handling, assembling, and inspection. Comprised of 46 chapters, this book begins by describing the modeling and simulation of a production system for small batch size metalworking production with high automation and high flexibility. The discussion then turns to the conceptual design of a multi-purpose automated Integrated Production Center for batch or piecewise production; research issues for automatic assembly; and practical application of diagnostic signature analysis to testing of rotating machines. Subsequent chapters focus on a profile pattern recognition system for machine parts; automatic inspection of defects on contact parts; the use of material-handling robots for programmable automation; and extra-cyclic passages of gray codes and their applications in numerical control design. This monograph will be of interest to engineers and technicians employed in the manufacturing industry.
