Patent ID: 7379782

Claim:
A system for quantifying and identifying a constraint in an automated manufacturing facility, said automated manufacturing facility having automated workstations for automatically processing workpieces, the system comprising: a plurality of signal converters, each of said plurality of signal converters continuously receiving event and state signals collected at a respective automated workstation, and transforming said event and state signals to time and count data, said time and count data including an overcycle time spent by said respective automated workstation during each process cycle of processing a workpiece and a workpiece count; a data modeling engine communicating with said plurality of signal converters; said each signal converter including a computing unit, said computing unit calculating a throughput capability measure of said respective automated workstation upon completion of said each process cycle at said respective workstation, said throughput capability measure being calculated from an expected processing time and an accumulated overcycled processing time accumulated over an accumulation period; and said data modeling engine receiving from said plurality of signal converters said throughput capability measures and identifying the constraint as a workstation whose throughput capability measure meets a pre-selected criteria, wherein said overcycle time is a non-negative quantity derived from a difference between a cycle time of said each process cycle and an ideal cycle time, said overcycle time excluding time spent by said respective workstation during starved and blocked states during said each process cycle, wherein said expected processing time and said accumulated overcycled processing time are accumulated from said ideal cycle time and an overcycled processing time, respectively, over said accumulation period, and wherein said overcycled processing time is a sum of said overcycle time and said ideal cycle time.