A preliminary study on integrating operation flexibility within semi-heterarchical FMS control

This study aims to analyze the integration of operation flexibility (OF) within a semi-heterarchical flexible manufacturing system (SHFMS) control architecture. This architecture is composed of two types of decisional entities, global and local, and it exists three different modes in which those two types of entities can interact. In this paper, various ways in which OF can be integrated in the SHFMS architecture are presented and analyzed. Two of these options were implemented and tested using a theoretical flexible manufacturing system benchmark. The promising results confirms the significant contribution OF can provide, not only in terms of Just-in-Time (JIT) global performance but also in terms of the capacity to react to perturbations.