Addressing the use of robots for flexible automation from a manufacturing systems viewpoint, that is how robots interface with all the manufacturing hardware and software, this text discusses industrial applications and weaves a major case study throughout, allowing students to follow and join an automation design team as they work through each stage of the design process. An accompanying disk and video provide project data. This third edition expands the number of well-documented manufacturing cases and applications, and adds a chapter on-work-cell design based on computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) principles.
James A. Rehg, CMfgE, is an associate professor of engineering at Penn State-Altoona. He earned a BS and MS in electrical engineering from St. Louis University and has completed additional graduate work at Wentworth Institute, University of Missouri, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, and Clemson University. Before moving to Penn State, he was director of the Computer Integrated Manufacturing project and department head of CAD/CAM and Machine Tool Technology at Tri-County Technical College, and previous to that he was director of Academic Computing and the Manufacturing Productivity Center at Trident Technical College. Professor Rehg also served as director of the Robotics Resource Center at Piedmont Technical College and department head of Electronic Engineering Technology at Forest Park Community College. His industrial experience includes work in instrumentation at McDonnell Douglas Corporation and consulting in the areas of computer-aided design, robotics, computer-integrated manufacturing, and programmable logic controllers.
Professor Rehg has written five texts on robotics and automation and many articles on subjects related to training in automation and robotics. His most recent text is Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, 2nd ed., with coauthor Henry Kraebber of Purdue University, published by Prentice Hall in 2000. Professor Rehg has received numerous state awards for excellence in teaching, including the outstanding instructor in the nation by the Association of Community College Trustees and the Penn State Engineering Society Outstanding Teaching Award in 1998.