On-line production control of a flexible multi-cell manufacturing system operating in a highly dynamic environment

This paper examines the problem of real-time production control of a flexible multi-cell manufacturing system operating in a highly changing produce-to-order environment. A two-level distributed production control system (DPCS) is suggested and examined through a simulation study. The proposed production control system allows autonomous and simultaneous operation of each cell using heuristic rules. The heuristic rules take into account processing efficiency and time-based considerations. Simulation experiments show that the proposed DPCS robustly withstands variations in the product-mix, machine and handling device failures, and lead-time duration. The simulation results also show that the developed DPCS substantially decreases orders' lateness in comparison with that of a previous version of this model.