Microfactory
[DEFINITION]
small manufacturing system comparable in scale with the small products
on which it is used.
[DESCRIPTION]
Small equipment such as watches, cameras, and cassette recorders contain
many components of a few millimetres in size. So far, such miniature components
have been processed and assembled by metre-order machine tools or assembly
robots. Accordingly, in the processing of microcomponents and assembling
by such metre-order manufacturing systems, the power required for the movement
of the machine tools and assembly robots themselves is much higher than
that required for the processing and assembly of the small equipment. In
addition, compared to the size of the components and products, extremely
large amounts of space and resources are required for metre-order manufacturing
systems.
[References]
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[Related Terms]