Long-sighted dispatching rules for manufacturing scheduling problem in Industry 4.0 hybrid approach

Abstract

The introduction of Cyber–Physical Systems, the implementation of machine learning, and the proposal of other technologies are some of the main features of Industry 4.0, which aims to change the way of production by introducing more flexibility and more autonomous decision-making by machines. The presence of centralized and decentralized systems and the continuous change in the market scenario has led to a transition of production systems from highly centralized or decentralized processes to a hybrid architecture that incorporated advantages of the production control approaches. The analysis of the production performances of recent semi-heterarchical architectures encourage to assess these architectures by introducing new scheduling approach that overcome the risk to take a myopic perspective: the long-sighted approach. To this aim, two new dispatching rules are proposed, both evaluated with different variability. This is significant because it allows the measurement of the performance of the production system, as well as the definition of the reactive and proactive capacity of semi-heterarchical architectures in an increasingly competitive market.