The Development of Production Monitoring Systems

Computer technology has given manufacturers the opportunity to monitor, on-line and in real-time, a wide variety of manufacturing systems. Such monitoring systems have considerable potential for expansion and development but need to take account of the special characteristics of particular manufacturing systems and how the information is to be used to best effect. This paper outlines the use of monitoring in the broad context of manufacturing plant operations and describes the design of a development system that will facilitate research into the effective application and improvement of monitoring systems.