A control framework to support responsive manufacturing

This paper is concerned with reducing the barriers imposed on the flexibility and responsiveness of automated manufacturing systems by current control software technology. The general question that is addressed by this research is, how can insights be gained from the manufacturing system that can assist the control system in meeting this goal of responsive behavior? The approach that is taken is to investigate appropriate means of integrating available manufacturing system information into the control system. A framework for integrating status information to control an automated assembly line is introduced that combines both transient information (e.g. station queue length) and steady‐state information (e.g. station gradient estimates) obtained by observing the operation of the assembly line. It is shown that, through the use of an appropriately designed fuzzy‐logic controller (FLC), the combined information results in flow time performance superior to that achieved using the transient or steady‐state measures individually.