A conceptual model and prototype of an adaptive production control system
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Abstract
The literature suggests two divergent approaches to the structure of intelligent production control systems. The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), through its Advanced Manufacturing Research Facility (AMRF), and the European Community, tlirougli the European Specific Research and Technological Development Programme in the field of Information Technology (ESPRIT), advocate a centralized coordination structure for intelligent production control systems (Jones and McLean, 1986: ESPRIT Consortium AMICE, 1993). Advocates of the centralized coordination structure note the requirement for a global view of the factory in order to facilitate global optimization of the production system (Joshi and Smith, 1992). The centralized coordination structure of the NIST AMRF is shown in Figure 1.1. All existing commercial production control systems are based on a centralized coordination structure (Veeramani, Bhargava, and Barash, 1993).
Many researchers in the field question the efficacy of the centralized coordination structure and have proposed intelhgent production control systems based on a decentralized coordination stnicture (Hatvany, 1985; Duffie and Piper, 1987; Duffie, 1990, Veeramani, Bhargava, and Barash, 1993). The expected benefits of the decentralized coordination structure are reduced complexity, reduced software development costs, higli modularity, high flexibihty, and improved fault tolerance (Duffie and Piper, 1987).