A Teaching Job Shop Control System with Real-time Inventory Management

Abstract

This thesis presents a teaching job shop control system for running in assembly laboratories at colleges and universities in preparing Industrial Engineering students for challenges faced in real-world factories. Current techniques fail to encompass this idea of training for students like the proposed method does. Microsoft Access was used in creating a database that is the center point in this new system. Inventory is managed using this database system and added if parts are created in the manufacturing lab and moved to the assembly area. The system will stop if parts are low until new parts are created. In this new system, a pallet with an unfinished product on it moves down a conveyor system until it reaches the next workstation. At this station, the station operator scans a barcode on the pallet. This barcode contains what product is on this pallet. Based on this information, an ordered list of tasks appears on the workstation computer screen and must be done before the pallet can be moved on. When all tasks have been completed at a station, the station operator clicks 'done' on the screen and then can either move to the next pallet or end the run. Statistics are kept on the quality of the final products and parts as well as a work-in-process and on a goal percentage of good products out at the end of a one-hour time frame. Administrators will be able to assign tasks and parts to products and stations, as well as be able assign the goal ahead of time.