<p>Documentation is essential to the success of any project or system and has
three major functions. Those functions are: to help the user become familiar with the
system, to help the user increase the system's productivity, effectiveness and
efficiency, and to guide the user in an unexpected or emergency condition.</p>
<p>
The flexible manufacturing and assembly system (FMAS) in 161 Whittemore Hall was an example of an undocumented system. Manufacturer documentation about
the system's components was available, but little formal documentation on the system
as a whole existed. Additionally, the documents that were available for the system did
not follow any common format. That is, each document had its own style.</p>
<p>
There were two primary objectives of this research. The first was to develop a
standard format and style guide for use when creating documentation for laboratory
development projects within the Manufacturing Automation Laboratories (MAL). The
second objective was to apply the developed format and style guide to the writing of a
user's manual for the FMAS in 161 Whittemore Hall. A secondary goal was to establish
a document numbering system. This numbering system is to be used to identify, by
type and chronology, all documents submitted to the MAL library.</p>
<p>
This project report is very short, simply because the products of the research
are separate, stand-alone documents. The first of the two, the <u>Manufacturing
Automation Laboratories Documentation Style Guide</u>, satisfies the first primary
objective, and the document numbering system format is included as an appendix. The style guide presents general information about MAL document preparation, establishes
guidelines for documentation of computer code, and addresses the required content of
MAL drawings and graphics. Also presented in this guide is an introduction to the
PAPYRUS reference database system, which is to be used when creating any
documentation for the MAL library.</p>
<p>
The Flexible Manufacturing and Assembly System User's Manual satisfies the
second objective, introducing the reader to the components of the FMAS and providing
descriptions of the components' tasks in the system. Two chapters of the manual are
devoted to safety and maintenance with respect to the FMAS, and another details the
procedures for activating and shutting down the system.<p> / Master of Science
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/46363 |
| Date | 23 December 2009 |
| Creators | Arrington, Daniel W. |
| Contributors | Industrial and Systems Engineering, Deisenroth, Michael P., Reasor, Roderick J., Eyada, Osama K. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Master's project |
| Format | BTD, application/pdf |
| Relation | LD5655.V851_1993.A774.pdf |
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