An Effective Approach for Distributed Process Planning Enabled by Event-driven Function Blocks

Abstract

This chapter presents a function block enabled approach towards distributed process planning. It covers the basic concept, generic machining process sequencing using enriched machining features, process plan encapsulation in function blocks, and process monitoring through event-driven function blocks. A two-layer structure of supervisory planning and operation planning is proposed to separate generic data from machine-specific ones. The supervisory planning is only performed once, in advance, at the shop level to generate machine-neutral process plans, whereas the operation planning is carried out at runtime at the machine level to determine machine-specific operations. This dynamic decision making is facilitated by resource-driven algorithms embedded in the function blocks. The internal structures of typical function blocks are also introduced in the chapter. Our approach and algorithms are verified through case studies before drawing conclusions. It is expected that the new approach can greatly enhance the dynamism of fluctuating job-shop operations.