MPS Training Equipment: Modular Production Systems

A modular production system, usually shortened to MPS, is a set of individual automation stations that each teach one function and can be coupled into a complete production line. It is the standard way to teach mechatronics because an institute can start with two stations and extend year by year without replacing anything.

Standard stations

Distributing station for part feeding, testing station for measurement and part rejection, processing station for drilling or machining simulation, handling station with pneumatic or electric pick and place, buffering station, assembly station, sorting station with sensor-based classification, and a storage station with automated retrieval.

What students learn

Each station is a self-contained lesson in sensors, pneumatics, actuator control and PLC programming. Coupled together, they teach the harder subject: handshaking between controllers, line sequencing, cycle time and bottleneck analysis, and fault diagnosis on a system where the symptom appears at a different station from the cause.

Specifying an MPS laboratory

State which stations are required and in what order, the controller family, whether stations must be electrically and mechanically couplable to form a line, whether a supervisory HMI or SCADA layer is in scope, and the compressed air supply available at the site. Air pressure and flow are the most commonly missed site requirement on an MPS installation.