Intelligent scheduling of a feature-process-machine tool supernetwork based on digital twin workshop

Abstract

Modern manufacturing enterprises are shifting toward multi-variety and small-batch production. By optimizing scheduling, both transit and waiting times within the production process can be shortened. This study integrates the advantages of a digital twin and supernetwork to develop an intelligent scheduling method for workshops to rapidly and efficiently generate process plans. By establishing the supernetwork model of a feature-process-machine tool in the digital twin workshop, the centralized and classified management of multiple data types can be realized. A feature similarity matrix is used to cluster similar attribute data in the feature layer subnetwork to realize rapid correspondence of multi-source association information among feature-process-machine tools. Through similarity calculations of decomposed features and the mapping relationships of the supernetwork, production scheduling schemes can be rapidly and efficiently formulated. A virtual workshop is also used to simulate and optimize the scheduling scheme to realize intelligent workshop scheduling. Finally, the efficiency of the proposed intelligent scheduling strategy is verified by using a case study of an aeroengine gear production workshop.