Chapter 8 - Real-Time Information-Driven Production Scheduling System

Abstract

During traditional manufacturing process, it’s hard to achieve real-time production scheduling because of the inefficient feedback of real-time information in the shop floor. To address the mentioned challenge, a framework of real-time information-driven production system is designed in this chapter. It’s also used to bridge the gap between production planning and control. The real-time information-driven production system consists of four modules. They are equipment agent, capability evaluation agent, real-time scheduling agent, and production execution monitor agent. Equipment agent is employed to capture and process real-time information in the shop floor. In the process planning stage, capability evaluation agent is used to accomplish the optimal tasks allocation according to the real-time utilization ratio of each machine. As the name suggests, real-time scheduling agent is responsible for the manufacturing tasks scheduling or rescheduling according to the traced real-time information. Production execution monitor agent aims to track and trace the real-time status of different manufacturing processes. The running mechanism of each agent is described in detail in this chapter.