Goal-orientation mechanism in a fractal manufacturing system

Decomposition of tasks in ordinary manufacturing systems is usually based on the predefined goal of the system. To achieve the high-level goals (e.g. factory goal or company goal), several subgoals should be achieved in advance. However, goals can dynamically change along with the current status of the system and the external environmental situations. Thus, a manufacturing system should support the goal formations, which can bear these changes for efficient and effective operations. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a systematic methodology for goal formations in a manufacturing system. In particular, the formation and/or change of goals in real-time should be possible for distributed and dynamic systems including a fractal manufacturing system (FrMS). However, most researchers have started their study from an assumption that every goal in the system is naturally well defined. This paper proposes a methodology for the goal-formation process (GFP), which embodies one of the characteristics of a fractal (i.e. goal orientation) in the FrMS. In order to generate fuzzy goals and propagate them in the system, fuzzification/defuzzification and goal-generation procedures are presented in detail. For easy understanding of the procedure, an exemplary goal generation is also illustrated within the proposed GFP framework. By applying the GFP, we expect that the manufacturing system would become autonomous and flexible by generating and evolving goals without human intervention.