Automatically operable manufacturing and machining plant

Abstract

The invention provides an automatically operable manufacturing and machining plant. It comprises a plurality of machining cells, a management system for the workpieces including storage appliances for storing the workpieces, transporting appliances for transporting the workpieces and handling appliances for manipulating the workpieces, and a data handling and exchange system for controlling the operations of the manufacturing and machining plant. The data handling and exchange system comprises a first external data handling and exchange network with a central data processing unit for the exchange of operation control data between the central data processing unit and the machining cells and for the exchange of transporting control data between the central processing unit and the transporting appliances. Further, there is provided a second internal data handling and exchange network for the exchange of data between the storage appliances, the transporting appliances and the handling appliances. The workpieces are mounted on pallets which comprise memory modules containing data for the identification of the workpiece, destination data for the transport of the workpieces, and data for fetching machine programs used for the machining of the workpiece. The data contained in the memory modules are processed by the second internal data handling and exchange network.