Development of Microcomputer Based Foundry Production Control System

Abstract

This thesis deals with the problems associated with production planning and control in jobbing/batch foundries and the use of microprocessor technology to assist foundry management to overcome these problems. The research deals with three specific areas. (1) Identification of features contributing to the problem. (2) Defining the requirements for a production control system. (3) Using microcomputers to assist production controllers in their task. Since foundries provide a service, the objective of production control systems should be to achieve a reasonable balance between maximum on-time deliveries and efficient utilisation of resources. Information required for job selection is considered to be the root of the problem. Detailed scrutiny of the problem reveals that production planning in jobbing/batch foundries could be best achieved by combining the intuition of the production controller with the information processing power of the computer. Hence it is advocated that the establishment of an ‘information system' and more informed procedures for job selection should constitute the basis for production control. The computing complexity required for a foundry production information system is comparatively small compared with that required for other manufacturing industries and a wide range of low cost microcomputers have adequate capacity for such a system. The proposed microcomputer based production control system is expected to cost about £8000 for a foundry handling up to 1000 live orders. Case studies conducted during the research indicate that microcomputer based systems can contribute significantly towards better production control, although it is too early to generalise on specific savings in production control staffing. Limitations were evident, with respect to speed of execution and data storage capacity of low cost computer hardware. However this could be overcome by using the latest versions (16 bit) of microcomputers, ‘winchester drives', and reorganisation of the data base.