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LASTword By Dr. Jong-Kweon Park, KIMM Downsizing factories for micro production 52 | MARCH/APRIL 2010 | MICROmanufacturing Demand for micro products is increasing. However, many manufacturing systems for these products are the same ones employed for larger products. They occupy excessive space and consume more energy than is needed for micromanufacturing operations. There is great potential to reduce the physical scale of many manufacturing processes used to produce small mechatronic and other micro/meso-scale products. Small-scale micromanufacturing systems that do not exceed desktop size are typically called “microfactories.” Their development is being driven by the fact that creating micro/ meso-scale components and features may be achieved more efficiently by machine tool systems many orders of magnitude smaller than those currently used for such Desktop Factory Forum Figure 1: The Desktop Factory Forum has commercialized several microfactory concepts. TUT applications. As micro feature dimensions decrease, machine tool acceleration must increase to accommodate rapid changes in toolpath direction. Without an increase, tool velocity will be reduced and tool life will suffer. Since small machine tools have less inertia than larger ones, they need less force to achieve these accelerations and, therefore, they consume less power. These machines generate smaller thermal errors and have smaller footprints. As a result, microfactories have the potential to achieve acceptable performance at greatly reduced cost. Microfactory developments Since the late 1990s, research institutes and universities around the world have primarily driven the development of microfactories. One of the first efforts was housed in a large suitcase that included a micromilling machine, a press and a robot with a manipulator. It was built and demonstrated by the former Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, Japan, which is now a part of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tokyo. Researchers at AIST have since developed desktop-sized and smaller manufacturing systems. Other organizations, including industry groups in Japan, are continuing to develop and apply new microfactory concepts. One example is R&D performed by the Desktop Factory Forum, a regional consortium of 20 Japanese companies and academic organizations focused on miniature manufacturing systems. Group members have developed and implemented various desktop machines for their own use (see Figure 1). Collaborative development of microfactories—focusing on processes, machines and systems—also has been carried out by European industry groups and universities. One example is a microfactory developed by Tempere University of Technology (TUT), Finland, for manufacturing and assembly of small parts and products. The reconfigurable Figure 2: A microfactory for medical implants at the Technical University of Tempere. continued on page 51
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