Man machine chart

= Definition =

The man-machine chart, or simochart, is a planning industrial graphically defining resources' activity (robots, operators, ...) at repetitive tasks. It is typically used to plan the activity of resources in large and medium series.

Each resource continually performs the same tasks. When the last task is completed, the resource runs again the first task. This estate is called cycle.

A diagram is consitued of tangled cycles. The duration of the longest cycle is called time of cycle. It is usually the time needed to produce or assemble a piece.

Usage

As schedules conventional type Gantt or PERT, it allows you to adjust the industrial capacity (resources, robots, operators, etc.) Depending on the desired rate of production, provide or verify the time of cycle. In a study of industrial process, it is therefore necessary to make man-machines charts.

They allow in manufacturing:
* to deduct the time of cycle from it in stabilized.
* To adjust the industrial ability at the desired production rate.
* To check back later thatthe actual facilities correspond to forecasts.

This representation has become a universal support for all industrial players such as suppliers of machinery, maintenance, automation or mechanics.

Methods of achieving

The difference between a diagram and a schedule corresponds to that between an barrel organ, and music box
* The first operates a punched card with a beginning and an end (= classical planning)
* The second operates a drum giving the illusion of an endless melody (= man-machine chart).Although it is designed on flat surfaces (paper or screen), we must imagine it with a cylindrical shape and without temporal origin. The length of each bar task is comparable to the duration of the task, the perimeter of the cylinder is the time of cycle .

Develop a chart can quickly become tedious and complicated. Indeed, each resource completes a cycle and each resources by collaborating with each other implicitly describe new cycles. But for every new link established between two prior tasks we are witnessing a combinatorial explosion in the number of cycles induced. The higher the rate of production is low, the longer the cycle is long, more there are tasks and ties, more the tangle of cycles is complex.

To reduce business risks, industry of large and medium series uses resources more and more versatile. Thus, the automotive industry has gradually replaced the lines transfers by islets with robots, or operators or numerical control machines.This versatility leads to a proliferation of tasks performed by each resource. The prediction and the definition of time of cycle become increasingly complex.

In summary, man-machine charts are very often made "by hand" inducing significant risk of error.Some possibilities exist that create these diagrams" 'digitally"', most often with inadequate software such as spreadsheets or planning software, but rarely with more specialized software"."

External Link

* [http://www.afantic.com/cycloplan.html Cycloplan: The optimized man-machine chart software]
* [http://www.afantic.com/simochart.html The simochart]
* [http://www.afantic.com/glossary.html The glossary of Afantic on man-machine charts in industry]