System engineering of computer integrated manufacturing

Technologies to manufacture affordable systems are of very high interest to naval aviation, the Navy, other services and industry. The current environment of downsizing and continued budget reduction is causing DoD to seek effective methods to improve the affordability and availability of critical devices. Computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) and flexible manufacturing (FM) proved to be the appropriate choice for cost effective manufacturing. CIM deals with the effective utilization of computers and automation in manufacturing to improve production (quality yield, cycle time) and reduce the unit product cost. This paper uses a system engineering approach to formulate the architecture and design of an infrared focal plane array CIM factory. A system engineering approach deals with the total issue of building systems: the determination of the requirements, establishing the architecture, performing system partitioning and integration of hardware and software, applying the evaluation measures (metrics), and doing design tradeoff analyses of options and alternatives. At a given partitioning level, system integration is the process of blending hardware and software building blocks into a unified functioning whole. Computer integrated manufacturing is considered the integration of mini-factories (clusters of workcells) through a distributed computing environment (DCE) and the automation of manufacturing processes.