Modeling and control of nested manufacturing processes using dioid models

Manufacturing systems are frequently adapted to changing customer demands. However, every extension with respect to the hardware requires a modification of the corresponding model and controller. In this paper we propose a dioid model of manufacturing processes in which parts may visit the same resource more than once. The proposed model can be used to determine a controller that maintains the throughput while starting activities just-in-time. Furthermore, the model can easily be adapted in case of hardware modifications. Also nested processes, i.e., processes in which some activities of part k may be executed prior to activities of part (k - 1), can be modeled with the proposed approach.