A generic architecture of manufacturing cell control system

Abstract

The depiction of an agile manufacturing cell includes a synopsis of some of the agilities obtained by the configuration. The agile configuration here brings additional values, such as rapid new product introduction, accommodation to unpredictable demand, longer equipment applicability, etc. To achieve agile configuration, the cell-control system for agile manufacturing must be rapidly and efficiently generated or modified. The high reconfigurability of cell-control software, such as modularity, reusability and maintainability, must be considered. The aim of this paper is to propose an object-oriented generic architecture that efficiently supports the design and implementation of highly reconfigurable control systems for agile manufacturing cells. The generic architecture is composed of resource objects, informational objects and control object. The structure of resource objects is proposed in detail. To develop cell-control software rapidly, the OPN model is established so as to describe the dynamic behaviour of a resource object, control logic, as well as exchanging with other objects.