Integration of information and knowledge from the engineering activity to the workshop control

Controlling a flexible manufacturing system (FMS) involves the management of various kinds of knowledge about the different components of the workshop and about the manufactured products. In order to provide flexibility and reactivity, the control system should integrate this information (including information from engineering activities) and also suit the workshop management policy. A model that organizes this knowledge dynamically according to contextual points of view is proposed. It relies on cooperative controllers. Each is based both on a specialized view of the knowledge base and a global view of the entire architecture, and epigenetic neural networks. Cooperation between decision systems takes place directly at a knowledge level, which improves reactivity abilities and allows partial consistent answers to be given quite quickly