Behaviour modelling and control of computer integrated manufacturing

A shop floor can be considered an important level at which to develop computer integrated manufacturing systems (CIMs). The shop floor is a dynamic environment where unexpected events continuously occur, and it imposes changes to planned activities. The shop floor should adopt an appropriate control system that is responsible for scheduling coordination and moving manufacturing material and information flow. In this paper, an architecture of a hybrid control model identifies three levels: i.e. a shop floor controller (SFC), a cell controller (CC) and an equipment controller (EC). The methodology for developing these controllers is to employ an object-oriented approach for static models, IDEF0 for function models for dispatching a job. A new methodology, called the Multi-Layered Operation Model (MuLOM), will represent various activities, and control log involved in the shop floor will be introduced and tested with an illustration of a simple hypothetical cell and equipment. SFC and CC are coordinated, employing multi-factor bidding, and an adapted Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) proves the applicability of the suggested method. Test experiments have been conducted on the shop floor, which consisted of six manufacturing cells.