Towards advanced manufacturing systems for large parts: a review

Large-mechanical-part machining is a very important trend for modern industry to develop, and it has attracted a lot of attention from advanced industries. As an important element of the research, the manufacturing system for large parts has been widely studied. In order to get a comprehensive understanding of this kind of system, the state of the art in several aspects including the classification of the system, major challenges facing each kind of system, structure and optimizes design of the system are summarized in this paper. The manufacturing system is divided into two categories: large workshop machine tools and light and agile machine systems. The design and optimization methods for large workshop machine tool structural parts are summarized. Common techniques for error compensation are also analyzed. Development of the light and agile machine system is stated, and its further classification is carried out. Significantly, features as well as advantages and disadvantages of different systems are analyzed. Finally, this paper gives out further research on the manufacturing systems for large parts.