NEW ORGANIZATION. The second edition consists of five parts, following two introductory chapters: I. Automation and control technologies: industrial computer control, control system components, numerical control, industrial robotics, programmable logic controllers. II. Material handling technologies: conveyor systems, automated guided vehicle systems, automated storage systems, automatic identification and data capture. III. Manufacturing systems: single station cells, group technology, flexible manufacturing systems, assembly lines, transfer lines. IV. Quality control systems: statistical process control, inspection principles and technologies. V. Manufacturing support systems: CAD/CAM, process planning, production planning, production planning and control, lean production and agile manufacturing. TEXT FEATURES Expanded coverage of automation fundamentals, numerical control programming, group technology, flexible manufacturing systems, material handling and storage, quality control and inspection, inspection technologies, programmable logic controllers. New chapters or sections on manufacturing systems, single station manufacturing systems, mixed-model assembly line analysis, quality assurance and statistical process control, Taguchi methods, inspection principles and technologies, concurrent engineering, automatic identification and data collection, lean and agile manufacturing. Higher quantitative and engineering content in the text with more equations and example problems More quantitative problems on more topics: 385 problems in the new edition, 125 more than the 1987 edition. Historical notes describing the development and historical background of many of the automation technologies.