Development of a Simulation-Based Intelligent Decision Support System for the Adaptive Real-Time Control of Flexible Manufacturing Systems

Abstract

This paper describes a simulation-based intelligent decision support system (IDSS) for real time control of a flexible manufacturing system (FMS) with machine and tool flexibility. The manufacturing processes involved in FMS are com- plicated since each operation may be done by several machining centers. The system design approach is built around the theory of dynamic supervisory control based on a rule-based expert system. The paper considers flexibility in op- eration assignment and scheduling of multi-purpose machining centers which have different tools with their own effi- ciency. The architecture of the proposed controller consists of a simulator module coordinated with an IDSS via a real time event handler for implementing inter-process synchronization. The controller’s performance is validated by benchmark test problem.