Intelligent operations control: architecture for seamless integration of scheduling and execution

摘要

Flexible automation gains importance in different manufacturing sectors as a consequence of increasing product individualization on the one hand and high wage costs on the other one. Flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) distinguish themselves through multidirectional material flows, flexible order processing possibilities and rapid set-up as well as reconfiguration ability during the operation. As a consequence, operation scenarios in such manufacturing systems and, thus, control tasks become more complex. This requires higher intelligence of the operations control systems, which must be able not only to execute a predefined control logic, but also predict the development of the situation, schedule, plan and optimize the manufacturing operation sequences in FMS and give additional hints to the operator. This paper analyzes the requirements on the modeling of intelligent operations control systems and proposes an architecture for future control solutions allowing to integrate seamlessly the scheduling and execution in flexibly automated systems.