New concepts and methods for developing shop floor control systems

摘要

An industrial research project defines models and methods for design and implementation of computer based control and monitoring systems for production cells. This is primarily documented within automated robot welding cells in the shipbuildingindustry. In order to support engineering of cell control systems by the use of enablers, a generic cell control data model and an architecture has been defined. Further an engineering methodology is defined. It is concluded that cell control technologyprovides for increased performance in production systems, and that the cell control engineering concept reduces the effort for providing and operating high quality and high functionality cell control solutions for the industry. The plans for the nextgeneration industrial shop floor and cell controllers are to develop new concepts based on more distributed systems, which are more robust and agile with respect to changing demands, technological advances and daily operations. The scope of these systemsare a network of co-operating cells as opposed to individually operated cells which are co-ordinated in a traditionally (hierarchical planning) manner. This new approach raises new demands for the individual cell as well as its ability to cooperate.