• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.719-739
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• 1996

A common control model used to implement computer integrated manufacturing(CIM) is based on the hierarchical decomposition of the shop floor activities, in which supervisory controllers are responsible for all the interactions among subordinates. Although the hierarchical control philosophy provides for easy understanding of complex systems, an emerging manufacturing paradigm, agile manufacturing, requires a new control structure necessary to accommodate the rapid development of a shop floor controller. This is what is called autonomous agent-based heterarchical control. As computing resources and communication network on the shop floor become increasingly intelligent and powerful, the new control architecture is about to come true in a modern CIM system. In this paper, heterarchical control is adopted and investigated, in which a controller for a unit of device performs three main functions - planning, scheduling and execution. Attention is paid to the planning function and all the detailed planning activities for heterarchical shop floor control are identified. Interactions with other functions are also addressed. In general, planning determines tasks to be scheduled in the future. In other words, planning analyzes process plans and transforms process plans into detailed plans adequate for shop floor control. Planning is also responsible for updating a process plan and identifying/resolving replanning activities whether they come from scheduling or execution.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.87-99
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• 1999

A shop floor control system(SFCS) performs the production activities required to fill orders. In order to effectively control these activities, the autonomous agent-based heterarchical shop floor control architecture is adopted where a supervisor does not exist. In this paper, we define functional perspective of the heterarchical shop floor control using planning, scheduling, and execution modules. In particular, we focus on an execution module that can coordinate the planning and scheduling modules and a general execution module that easily can be modified to execute the other equipment. The execution module can be defined informally as a module that downloads and performs a set of scheduled tasks. The execution module is also responsible for identifying and resolving various errors whether they come from hardware or software. The purpose of this research is to identify all the execution activities and solving techniques under the assumptions of the heterarchical control architecture. And we model the execution module in object-oriented modelling technique for generalization. The execution module modeled in object-oriented concept can be adopted to the other execution module easily. This paper also proposes a classification scheme for execution activities of the heterarchical control architecture. Petri-nets are used as a unified framework for modeling and controlling execution activities. For solving the nonexistence of a supervisor, a negotiation-based solution technique is utilized.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.150-161
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• 1999

This paper deals with the design and development of a real-time integrated communication architecture for heterarchical SFCS(Shop Floor Control System). In autonomous agent-based heterarchical SFCS, each functional unit of parts and resources is equipped with an intelligent controller (agent) that acts as the representative of the entity. The controllers communicate and negotiate with other controllers on a real-time basis through message passing and bidding protocol to achieve mutual agreements for task sharing. ICPL(Integrated Communication Protocol and Language) is proposed for this purpose. ICPL is a language and a protocol for supporting communication among intelligent controllers. Based on the speech act theory, this paper proposes a semantic description for ICPL that associates the description of the cognitive states of controllers with the use of language primitives (message_type). Semantics for the basic set of ICPL messages is described. Eventually, an ICPL-based communication architecture can provide the implementation of the distributed and heterarchical SFCS, and makes the intelligent controller transparent to the negotiation problem.

• Proceedings of the Korean Operations and Management Science Society Conference
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• 1995.04a
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• pp.776-782
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• 1995

This paper presents a methodology for development of a heterarchical control system in Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS) environment. A Petri net based model is applied for development of control software. A real-time scheduling methodology for the heterarchical system is also developed and it is used as a software entity in the overall architecture. The partition of generic and specific modules in control software development is emphasized. The control system performs its control tasks in two stages: (1) generation of generic control code and distribution of them to each controller entity prior to system execution; (2) generation of specific control code according to job arrival and its process plan. The control software and the scheduling algorithm are evaluated by a simulation program.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.108-118
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• 1997

The heterarchical structure provides a more attractive solution to the conventional hierarchical structure as the density and level of distrubution of computing resources in manufacturing system expands. Tracing the evolution of control structures for automated manufacturing systems, this paper discusses the design principles for heterarchical system to reduce complexity, increase extendability, flexible configurability and suggests a good example of real-time adaptation using the concept of intelligent agent of manufac- turing entities and fault diagmosis system.

• Proceedings of the Korean Operations and Management Science Society Conference
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• 1995.04a
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• pp.193-200
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• 1995

A shop floor control system(SFCS), a central part of agile manufacturing, performs the production activities required to fill orders. In order to effectively control these activities, CSCW (computer supported cooperative work) is adopted where a supervisor does not exist. In this paper, we define functional perspective of CSCW-based shop floor control using planning, scheduling, and execution functions. In particular, we focus on an execution model that can coordinate the planning and scheduling functions. Execution can be defined informally as a function that downloads and performs a set of scheduled tasks. Execution is also responsible for identifying and resolving various errors whether they come from hardware or software. The purpose of this research is to identify all the execution activities and solving techniques under the assumptions of CSCW-based heterarchical control architecture. This paper also proposes a classification scheme for execution activities of CSCW-based heterarchical control architecture. Petri-nets are used as a unified framework for modeling and controlling execution activities. For solving the nonexistence of a supervisor, A negotiation-based solution technique is utilized.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.343-357
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• 1997

This paper proposes a new AGV dispatching algorithm which is suitable for heterarchical manufacturing control structure. It is developed on the basis of bidding concept utilizing the information of work-in-process in incoming and outgoing buffers of workstation, and travel time of AGV. Since the bidding functions are functions of two parameters, sensitivity test is performed to find their appropriate values. The performance of the algorithm is compared with those of well-known existing rules in terms of system throughput through simulation on a hypothetical job shop type manufacturing system.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.22 no.52
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• pp.285-295
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• 1999

Developing control functions that operate and cooperate each equipment in order to achieve a goal is one of the most important problems in the installation of automated manufacturing systems. This paper discusses the development of a control system for heterarchical architecture and a simulator to verify operations of the control system. The object-oriented paradigm that has excellent reusability, portability, and extensibility is currently being used in many application fields as a software development methodology. Especially, UML(Unified Modeling Language), the third generation object-oriented modeling methodology, has advantages such as model generalization, clearness, and so on. In this research, software objects to accomodate the real time environments of automated manufacturing systems are modeled with the diagrams of UML. Based on these models, control software is developed as a format of pseudo-codes. A simulator is implemented to validate the developed control system.

• Proceedings of the Korean Operations and Management Science Society Conference
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• 1995.04a
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• pp.201-207
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• 1995

이제까지의 생산 시스템 컨트롤은 여러 개의 계층을 통해 상위 컨트롤러가 하위의 컨트롤러를 관리하는 계층적/감독(hierarchical$^{ervisory}$)컨트롤 방식이 일반적이었다. 그러나 생산 시스템의 규모가 증가하고, 이를 운용하는 컨트롤 소프트웨어가 복잡해짐에 따라 전통적인 계층적/감독 컨트롤 방식은 몇 가지의 문제점을 가지게 되었다. 첫째, 계층간의 관리 구조가 복잡해짐에 따라 현장의 생산 정보가 의사결정을 하는 상위의 시스템에 즉시 전달되지 못한다. 이는 실시간 의사결정이 필요한 많은 컨트롤 문제를 야기시킨다. 둘째, 생산시스템의 레이아웃 및 운영 방식에 변화가 생겼을 때 컨트롤 소프트웨어를 신속히 수정하기가 어렵다. 이러한 문제들을 해결하기 위한 방법으로 수평적/협동(heterarchical/cooperative) 컨트롤 방식이 제시된다. 이는 신속한 의사결정과 변화에 따른 수정이 용이하도록 가공, 조립, 물류등 생산 시스템의 여러 단위 요소의 자율적인 컨트롤러가 계층이 없이, 서로 동등한 입장에서 협동을 통해 컨트롤이 이루어진다. 본 연구에서는 수평적/협동 컨트롤 방식하에서 조립 시스템이 가져야 할 기능과 컨트롤 방법을 제시한다. 아울러, 조립 시스템 컨트롤러가 다른 컨트롤러들과 교환하는 정보 및 컨트롤 대상을 규명한다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Operations and Management Science Society Conference
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• 1995.04a
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• pp.185-192
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• 1995

A common control model used to implement computer integrated manufacturing(CIM) is based on the hierarchical decomposition of the shop floor activities, in which supervisory controllers are responsible for all the interactions among subordinates. Although the hierarchical control philosophy provides for easy understanding of complex systems, an emerging manufacturing paradigm, agile manufacturing, requires a new control structure necessary to accommodate the rapid development of a shop floor controller. This is what is called CSCW(computer supported cooperative work)-based control or component-based heterarchical control. As computing resources and communication network on the shop floor become increasingly intelligent and powerful, the new control architecture is about to come true in a modern CIM system. In this paper, CSCW-based control is adopted and investigated, in which a controller for a unit of device performs 3 main functions - planning, scheduling and execution. In this paper, attention is paid to a planning function and all the detailed planning activities for CSCW-based shop floor control are identified. Interactions with other functions are also addressed. Generally speaking, planning determines tasks to be scheduled in the future. In other words, planning analyzes process plans and transforms process plans into detailed plans adequate for shop floor control. Planning is also responsible for updating the process plan and identifying/resolving replanning activities whether they come from scheduling or execution.