A control system for flexible manufacturing

The application of computers to the manufacturing industry has substantially altered die control procedures used to program a whole manufacturing process. At present one of the major problems with Flexible Manufacturing Systems is the lack of a good practical overall control system. This paper identifies the problems involved in current methods of control and their advantages and disadvantages. As a result, a different type of control system is proposed which has been successfully developed and implemented. This control model combines the advantages of Hierarchical and Hierarchical control systems and utilizes distributed decision making and control features. The hybrid control system is comprised of four modules; manufacturing database, scheduler, communication and cell controller builder modules.