Expanding the production planning system based on simulation (PPSS) to dynamically reschedule production in a FMS

Computer simulation has been widely deployed in order to solve manufacturing problems, including production planning and control issues. In order to solve short-term rescheduling questions, our research group has proposed an approach called PPSS. This work aims at expanding PPSS capabilities, making it able to automatically analyze the plant conditions and, whenever necessary, carry out the simulation, evaluate the best rescheduling possibility and communicate the new control orders. Aiming to validate the expansion, rehearsals were carried out over a specified FMS plant which corroborated the efficiency of the approach, once that the production improvements were quite satisfactory. Some conclusions were drawn, and further work was introduced.