Intelligent decision support system for the adaptive control of a flexible manufacturing system with machine and tool flexibility

This paper describes an intelligent decision support system (IDSS) for real time control of a flexible manufacturing system (FMS). The controller is capable of classifying symptoms in developing the control policies on FMSs with flexibility in operation assignment and scheduling of multi-purpose machining centres which have different tools with their own efficiency. The proposed system is implemented by coupling of rule-based IDSS, simulation block and centralised simulation optimiser for elicitation of shop floor control knowledge. This posteriori adaptive controller uses a new bilateral mechanism in simulation optimiser block for offline training of IDSS based on multi-performance criteria simulation optimisation. The proposed intelligent controller receives online information of the FMS current state and trigger appropriate control rule within real-time simulation data exchange. Finally the FMS intelligent controller is validated by a benchmark test problem. Application of this adaptive controller showed that it could be an effective approach for real time control of various flexible manufacturing systems.