An architecture for scheduling and control in flexible manufacturing systems using distributed objects

Modern manufacturing systems are highly automated and require distributed architectures in order to integrate enterprise-wide planning and decision making while providing scalability. In this paper, we introduce an architecture for scheduling and controlling a manufacturing system using distributed objects. We design a cell object, which encapsulates data and methods for scheduling and controlling the cell resources. New jobs entering the manufacturing system are allocated to cells based on schedules computed in real time by these distributed cell objects. We demonstrate the efficacy of this approach through empirical trials that compare it to scheduling and job dispatching using other methods.