Product-Driven Generation of Action Sequences for Adaptable Manufacturing Systems

Abstract

In times of fast changing markets and short product life-cycles manufacturing systems have to be adaptable and able to support a variety in products and product volumes. Production has to be product-driven and switching between different products should be possible with little manual intervention. We suggest an action sequence generation approach that tailors the control programs of resources to product needs. The approach requires a model of the available resources with their capabilities and internal material flow, the material flow between resources as well as a product description. An action sequence can then be generated out of these models and later translated into an executable action sequence. The action sequence can be automatically downloaded and executed on a resource. The approach is evaluated on an educational production system with industrial components.