Flexible production automation needs flexible automatic material handling systems

In the production of the future there is a need for more flexibility. A lot of developments in the past were made in the direction to make production processes, organization, technology etc. more flexible. For machining processes we have already reached a very high degree of flexibility. Looking at other processes like assembly, handling, material flow, the necessary flexibility is not yet available. The paper deals with the situation we have at the mechanical enterprise where we use handling systems and material flow systems. There is a strong need for more flexibility. The paper furthermore describes an approach of an autonomous mobile robot which has been developed at the IPA and where different applications ara almost finished. The overall system, the components and the possibilities and limits of such a system will be discussed.