Product-driven Control Research Articles

Social Holonic control architecture: A comparative study through tangibility and complexity prisms

Evolutions of consumption habits have push markets’ competitiveness and have led industrial systems to grow in size & complexity to subsist. To support the development of these industrial complex-adaptable systems, research has focused for the last decades on the development of control architectures, in which Human-System Integration has become a major issue. In this context, this work is proposing an instantiation of a human-inspired social holarchy upon different Product-Driven control modes. The purpose of this experiment is to test the social holarchy's ability to visualize and understand the control-based agents interactions leading to a first approach for complexity assessment. The hypothesis in this work is that enhancing the tangibility of complex systems could foster a better human-system acceptability.

An analytic hierarchy process augmented with expert rules for product driven control in cyber-physical manufacturing systems

In Cyber-Physical Manufacturing Systems (CPMS), numerous distributed control architectures were suggested to make different production entities active with respect to decision-making and control processes, so that they can process information, interact, and make control decisions in an autonomous and adaptive way. Nevertheless, developing Product-Driven Control (PDC) mechanisms that enable Smart Products (SPs) to make control decisions to cope with disturbances is still a complex, open-ended, and challenging problem. This article suggests a PDC approach that enables SPs to learn how to make control decisions to react to disturbances and maintain continuity of operations. The control mechanism involves an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) augmented with Expert rules to cope with the limitations of standard AHP in dealing with dynamic problems. The mechanism is applied to a dispatching problem in an industrial scale assembly process. A multi-agent discrete event simulation model is used to create a set of normal and disturbed production scenarios. SP agents use context indicators and performance assessment to activate Expert rules and update AHP preferences and scales before making dispatching control decisions to react to disturbances. Data analytics tools are developed to help manufacturing system Experts define and fine-tune rules, based on rule firing statistics and corresponding context indicators and performance assessment acquired from simulation. Experimentations and results show competitive performance and highlight interesting research directions.

Dynamic scheduling of manufacturing systems: a product-driven approach using hyper-heuristics

ABSTRACT Dynamic scheduling of manufacturing systems is encountered in many real-world industries such as the food and pharmaceutical industries. The scheduling of these systems must not only be efficient but also reactive to cope with dynamic job arrivals and machine breakdowns. Over the last decade, products within Product-Driven Control Systems (PDCS) have become smart entities capable of actively handling the manufacturing process. In this paper, a PDCS based on the design of Smart Products is proposed. A generic model of the decisional strategy allows Smart Products to characterize different decisional contexts and thus switch efficiently from one scheduling rule to another using a novel Hyper-Heuristics (HH) based approach. The implementation and testing of the proposed PDCS on hybrid flexible flow-shops with multiple constraints inspired by the pharmaceutical industry are presented. The comparative study with 168 combinations of scheduling rules from the literature highlighted the superiority of the HH to minimize the Mean Completion Time. Furthermore, the proposed approach enhanced both the global performance and the reactivity of the manufacturing control system.

A product-driven system approach for multilevel decisions in manufacturing planning and control

Decision-making in Manufacturing Planning and Control Systems uses processes that consider several levels of product aggregation and different time horizons. Decisions rendered on each level do not always have similar goals. The problem is that building Intelligent Manufacturing Systems (IMS) involves coordinate decisions on different levels to achieve a common objective. There is no current research on IMS regarding coordination among decision levels in Product-driven Control Systems, hence simulations of the planning and control processes should be conducted to analyze the behavior of multilevel objectives. Accordingly, in this paper a simulation model gives account of different coordination issues between tactical and operational levels. At the tactical level, production plans are generated by an Advanced Planning and Scheduling system, whereas at the operational level, a distributed decision rule is used. The whole simulation makes decentralized decisions that are managed by production lots represented by holons. Results for our simulation indicate that coordination among active lots is capable of making effective multilevel distributed decisions when compared with conventional approaches.

Simulation of a Hybrid Product-Driven System for Manufacturing Planning and Control

Manufacturing planning and control systems (MPCS) incorporate processes that consider several levels of product aggregation and different time horizons for decision making. The decisions rendered on each level do not always have similar objectives. In the context of intelligent manufacturing systems (IMS), the coordination of decisions on different levels is a fundamental problem. Extensive research on IMS, specifically regarding coordination among decision levels in product-driven control systems (PDCS), is nonexistent. Therefore, simulations of the planning and control processes are proposed to analyze the coordination of multilevel objectives. The proposed implementation simulates the coordination between tactical and operational levels. At the tactical level, production plans are obtained through a system based on advanced planning and scheduling (APS). At the operational level, a decentralized system, which is based on distributed decision rules, is implemented. The simulation considers decentralized decisions that are managed by production lots, which are modeled as holons, and based on an industrial study case. The results indicate that coordination is feasible and highlight the importance of the reactivity caused by the distributed decisions made by the active lots. The proposed simulation schema can also be used to compare conventional and holonic collaborative approaches.

Product-Driven Control: a State of the Art and Future Trends

Abstract This paper focuses on the domain of product-driven control. The concept of product-driven control is introduced and then the expected advantages and the problems to be solved to obtain effectively these advantages are described. A brief but representative state of the art is presented. Two industrial applications of product-driven control in two different domains are also used to illustrate the concept. This paper concludes with a set of challenging prospects.

Design and validation of a product-driven control system based on a six sigma methodology and discrete event simulation

Recent trends in industry towards autonomous and just-in-time production systems, and the latest developments in auto-ID technologies, have created new opportunities for enhancing reactivity and agility on the shop floor. To take advantage of these opportunities, a Product-driven System (PDS) concept can be seen as an innovative control concept that advocates that a product can be an active actor throughout its lifecycle by associating the material flow with the product information. We propose a methodological approach that contributes to the design and validation of such a system. More specifically, this work focuses on an infrastructure that satisfies PDS control requirements. The feasibility of our proposed approach was evaluated by the development of an industrial case at the Trane Company using six sigma methodology and discrete event simulation.

Holonic Control Metamodel

Current production leanings, such as high product variability, demand advanced manufacturing systems (MSs). An example is the holonic MS (HMS) in which entities (e.g., resources and products) are ldquosmart.rdquo These entities are called holons (HLs), and their interactions are coordinated by holonic control (HC). Indeed, the complexity of HMS has required new design and test tools. In this context, this paper presents an HC metamodel, which was applied to a particular simulator. In this control solution, causal knowledge is enclosed in Rule HLs, which receive facts about Resource HLs and deliberate about the actions to be executed. The inference happens by means of an innovative net of notifications built from expert knowledge, in the form of (Sub)-HLs, which allows high reactivity, HL decoupling, conflict handling, coherent control expression and execution, and easy control adaptations. This solution still considers other issues, namely, the product-driven manufacturing: a tendency related to customized production in which Product HLs negotiate with Resource HLs aiming at adaptability and reactivity. In this case, Rule HLs intermediate and organize the collaborations of Product HLs and Resource HLs. This paper proposes to use the metamodel to compose a process-driven control and a product-driven control applied to a similar simulated HMS, highlighting their differences and advantages.

Verification of functional constraints for safe product driven control

This paper deals with dynamic reconfiguration of DES control within the context of manufacturing system to answer product variability or production resources availability. More precisely, it focuses on product-driven control (PDC) that embeds decisional and adaptation capabilities within the product. PDC can be defined in a static or dynamic way: in the first case, all switchable manufacturing trajectories are predefined and implemented in the product control while, in the second case, PDC can be seen as a non-deterministic and “on the fly” choice among control trajectories to fit with the manufacturing system availability and the product state. In this last case, PDC safety is ensured thanks to a filtering approach that enables to maintain PDC within a state space that satisfy functional and safety constraints whatever the control generated by the reconfiguration process is. This paper focuses on the definition and verification of a minimal set of constraints that ensure the sufficiency and the non blocking properties of the constraints. A case study illustrates the approach.

Active product modeling based on smart object concept. Application to chemical security management

Security control and management of goods and persons is a stake mattering in industries and principally in storage and handling of hazardous products. According to a product driven system control strategy this paper presents an efficient security and risk management system based on a distributed security monitoring model supported by each individual product. Ambient intelligence and communication technologies bring new visions in creating reliable systems for security management where dangerous products can be turned into smart products to control, prevent and react to security threats in the ambient process. Each product plays the role of an active node of the overall security system by means of an embedded reactive model for the security assurance. We propose and evaluate the Active Product concept that permits a product's reactive behaviour to environmental changes and to products' vicinity interactions.

Vers l'implantation d'un système contrôlé par le produit à l'aide de réseaux de capteurs sans fil

In the dynamically moving context of mass-customi zation of products, new manufacturing control architectures, based on the cof highly distributed, autonomous, adaptable and efficiently cooperating uintegrated by a plug-and-operate approach, seem to be efficient alternatives . Amongst them, the concept of a product-driven distributed control promotes an active role of the product in its manufacturing. This paper aims at validating the possibilities of Wireless Se nsor Networks for the implementation of a product-driven control. For this reason, it propose s generic models for the product's behaviour and for the interactions with resources. T hese models are used as guidelines to develop a validation environment based on a real fl exible production system.

The performance of product-driven manufacturing control: An emulation-based benchmarking study

Product-driven control may enable manufacturing companies to meet business demands more quickly and effectively. But a key point in making this concept acceptable by industry is to provide benchmarking environments in order to compare and analyze their efficiency on emulated large-scale industry-led case studies with regard to current technologies and approaches. In this paper, a benchmarking protocol is defined, in order to provide R&D practitioners with benchmarking services in a product-driven implementation project. A component-based generic architecture is proposed to support this protocol, enabling to model and compare various control architectures. This benchmarking protocol is applied to an automotive-industry case study in order to evaluate the impact of making the products interact with the local decision centers. Finally the experiments show that product-driven control can perform as good as traditional centralized control, and that its robustness depends mainly of the local decision-making processes.

SIMULATION AS A SUPPORT OF DESIGN AND VALIDATION OF A PRODUCT DRIVEN CONTROL SYSTEM

This work is part of a research project on product-driven automation that makes the product active for business and manufacturing purposes. The paper focuses on the design and the simulation of a product-driven control system to ensure better synchronization between informational and physical flows. Feasibility of the product-driven concept is evaluated by the development of an industrial test-bed from Trane Company. Main results show benefits for product traceability and cost & time reduction thanks to a better synchronization and anticipation between the manufacturing, assembly and supplying lines of the Trane plant.

Implementing the concept of Product-Driven Control using Wireless Sensor Networks: some experiments and issues

In the dynamically moving context of mass-customization of products, new manufacturing control architectures, based on the consideration of highly distributed, autonomous, adaptable and efficiently cooperating units integrated by a plug-and-operate approach, seem to be efficient alternatives. Amongst them, the concept of a product-driven distributed control promotes an active role of the product in its own manufacturing. This paper focuses on the possibilities to implement this concept on a case study using wireless sensor networks.

PRODUCT-DRIVEN CONTROL IN MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS USING IEC 61499 AND RFID TECHNOLOGY

To achieve re-configurability, reusability and flexibility of manufacturing systems, this paper extends a method for re-configuration of control on machine level by the use of auto-identification technology. The scheduling-based control concepts of Functionality Based Control (FBC) and Scheduler, Selector and Synchronizer (S3) are extended for a setting with RFID-technology (for product identification). Using this combination product-driven control can be achieved. Each product brings its own processing schedule on an RFID tag read by a RFID reader at the machines. Using a drill station as example, the calculation of processing schedules for a machine depending on newly arriving products is illustrated.

Adaptive disassembly sequence control by using product and system information

This contribution will introduce a conception for a product-driven control sequence generation by using information derived from a product accompanying information system, called Life Cycle Unit. The algorithm being developed for the sequence generation takes into account the availability and technological feasibility of disassembly processes, the actual disassembly system condition, and the actual disassembly step of a product. In order to verify the functionality of the developed algorithm for sequence generation an emulation environment is introduced. An actually existing hybrid disassembly system for home appliances serves as an example for the control sequence generation.