System Approach to the Design of Generic Software for Real-Time Control of Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS)

Abstract

To design a generic software, two main problems must be solved. To solve the first problem, the authors use a system approach leading to a discrete event dynamic system that constitutes a formal framework providing information on both the current operating conditions of the shop floor and the production progress. To face the second problem, the authors use the object-oriented approach to design the kernel of the generic control software. To build the flexible manufacturing system (FMS) model the authors specify the structural view, the entities, and the relationships of the queuing network configuration and the scheduling policies. While the elements of the structural view are fixed, those characterizing queuing network configuration and scheduling policy depend on the current state of the system. The data base of the FMS encapsulates the queuing network configuration and the current residual time to the next job input. The data base object possesses the methods for building, using, and updating the relational data base.