Patent ID: 8423168
Filing Date: 2013-04-16
Classification: G05B,G06Q,Y02P

Abstract:
1. A method of extracting a bottleneck device which is a cause of impeding productivity of a manufacturing line, comprising: collecting from manufacturing devices in the manufacturing line, or determining from simulation result data, production indexes of the manufacturing devices; constituting a two-dimensional array having a horizontal axis to which processes of the manufacturing line or used manufacturing devices arranged along a manufacturing route are set and a vertical axis comprising a time axis partitioned into predetermined time sections equally to be made to correspond to variables; calculating a moving average, dispersion and variable coefficients from production indexes totalized for each of the time sections while plural time sections are overlapped and storing pertinent ones of the variable coefficients as variables of the two-dimensional array; classifying values of the variable coefficients based on at least one predetermined threshold and extracting an outline of pattern data of a two-dimensional pattern comprised of two-dimensional array elements to which the variation coefficients of production fluctuations classified as being larger than or equal to said at least one threshold are stored; and searching for number of processes from most upstream process to most downstream process of two-dimensional pattern data having a series of connection relationships to determine a longest production fluctuation propagation length that production fluctuation in an upstream process influences production fluctuation in a downstream process to be outputted.