As one of the most classical scheduling problems,flexible job shop scheduling problems(FJSP)find widespread applications in modern intelligent manufacturing systems.However,the majority of meta-heuristic methods for s...As one of the most classical scheduling problems,flexible job shop scheduling problems(FJSP)find widespread applications in modern intelligent manufacturing systems.However,the majority of meta-heuristic methods for solving FJSP in the literature are population-based evolutionary algorithms,which are complex and time-consuming.In this paper,we propose a fast effective singlesolution based local search algorithm with an innovative adaptive weighting-based local search(AWLS)technique for solving FJSP.The adaptive weighting technique assigns weights to each operation and adaptively updates them during the exploration.AWLS integrates a Tabu Search strategy and the adaptive weighting technique to smooth the landscape of the search space and enhance the exploration diversity.Computational experiments on 313 well-known benchmark instances demonstrate that AWLS is highly competitive with state-of-the-art algorithms in terms of both solution quality and computational efficiency,despite of its simplicity.Specifically,AWLS improves the previous best-known results in the literature on 33 instances and match the best-known results on the remaining ones except for only one under the same time limit of up to 300 s.As a strongly non-deterministic polynomia(NP)-hard problem which has been extensively studied for nearly half a century,breaking the records on these classic instances is an arduous task.Nevertheless,AWLS establishes new records on 8 challenging instances whose previous best records were established by a state-of-the-art meta-heuristic algorithm and a famous industrial solver.展开更多
Dear Editor,This letter focuses on the distributed cooperative regulation problem for a class of networked re-entrant manufacturing systems(RMSs).The networked system is structured with a three-tier architecture:the p...Dear Editor,This letter focuses on the distributed cooperative regulation problem for a class of networked re-entrant manufacturing systems(RMSs).The networked system is structured with a three-tier architecture:the production line,the manufacturing layer and the workshop layer.The dynamics of re-entrant production lines are governed by hyperbolic partial differential equations(PDEs)based on the law of mass conservation.展开更多
Based on the system of electric power supply for flexible manufacturing systems (FMS), a study has been carried out on the intelligent safety examination, monitoring and maintenance of its running environment. On the ...Based on the system of electric power supply for flexible manufacturing systems (FMS), a study has been carried out on the intelligent safety examination, monitoring and maintenance of its running environment. On the basis of the specific feature of the power supply network of an FMS, real time monitoring system of the power supply network and the fault diagnostic expert system for the power equipment have been designed. This system can diagnose not only definite fault phenomena, but also fuzzy, uncertain fault phenomena as well. Fault diagnostic knowledge base for the power equipment has been founded hierarchy architecture model and the method of fault tree analysis. Feasibility of this system has been proved by computer simulation.展开更多
Today＇s manufacturing cnvironmem forces manufacturing companies to make as many product variations as possible at affordable costs within a short time. Mass customisation is one of most important technologies for com...Today＇s manufacturing cnvironmem forces manufacturing companies to make as many product variations as possible at affordable costs within a short time. Mass customisation is one of most important technologies for companies to achieve their objectives. Efforts to mass customisation should be made on two aspects： （1） To modularize products and make them as less differences as possible; （2） To design manufacturing resources and make them provide as many processes variations as possible. This paper reports our recent work on aspect （2）, i.e. how to design a reconfignrable manufacturing system （RMS） so that it can be competent to accomplish various processes optimally; Reconfignrable robot system （RRS） is taken as an example. RMS design involves architecture design and configuration design, and configuration design is further divided in design analysis and design synthesis. Axiomatic design theory （ADT） is applied to architecture design, the features and issues of RRS configuration design are discussed, automatic modelling method is developed for design analysis, and concurrent design methodology is presented for design synthesis.展开更多
This article presents a comprehensive mathematical model for the design and analysis of Dynamic Cellular Manufacturing Systems （DCMS）. The proposed DCMS model considers several manufacturing attributes such as multi...This article presents a comprehensive mathematical model for the design and analysis of Dynamic Cellular Manufacturing Systems （DCMS）. The proposed DCMS model considers several manufacturing attributes such as multi period production planning, dynamic system reconfiguration, duplicate machines, machine capacity, the available time for workers, worker assignments, and machine procurement. The objective is to minimize total costs; consisting of holding cost, outsourcing cost, inter-cell material handling cost, maintenance and overhead cost, machine relocation cost. While a study of published articles in the area of Cellular Manufacturing Systems （CMS） shows that workforce management issues have not sufficiently been addressed in the literature, the model presented also incorporates CMS workforce management issues such as salaries, hiring and firing costs of workers in addition to the manufacturing attributes. In-depth discussions on the results for two numerical examples are presented to illustrate applications of the proposed model. The model developed aims to raise the envelope by expanding and improving several CMS models previously presented in the literature.展开更多
Information and communication technology is undergoing rapid development, and many disruptive technologies, such as cloud computing, Internet of Things, big data, and artificial intelligence, have emerged. These techn...Information and communication technology is undergoing rapid development, and many disruptive technologies, such as cloud computing, Internet of Things, big data, and artificial intelligence, have emerged. These technologies are permeating the manufacturing industry and enable the fusion of physical and virtual worlds through cyber-physical systems （CPS）, which mark the advent of the fourth stage of industrial production （i.e., Industry 4.0）. The widespread application of CPS in manufacturing environments renders manufacturing sys- tems increasingly smart. To advance research on the implementation of Industry 4.0, this study examines smart manufacturing systems for Industry 4.0. First, a conceptual framework of smart manufacturing systems for Industry 4.0 is presented. Second, demonstrative scenarios that pertain to smart design, smart machining, smart control, smart monitoring, and smart scheduling, are presented. Key technologies and their possible applications to Industry 4.0 smart manufacturing systems are reviewed based on these demonstrative scenarios. Finally, challenges and future perspectives are identified and discussed.展开更多
Currently,manufacturing enterprises face increasingly fierce market competition due to the various demands of customers and the rapid development of economic globalization.Hence,they have to extend their production mo...Currently,manufacturing enterprises face increasingly fierce market competition due to the various demands of customers and the rapid development of economic globalization.Hence,they have to extend their production mode into distributed environments and establish multiple factories in various geographical locations.Nowadays,distributed manufacturing systems have been widely adopted in industrial production processes.In recent years,many studies have been done on the modeling and optimization of distributed scheduling problems.This work provides a literature review on distributed scheduling problems in intelligent manufacturing systems.By summarizing and evaluating existing studies on distributed scheduling problems,we analyze the achievements and current research status in this field and discuss ongoing studies.Insights regarding prior works are discussed to uncover future research directions,particularly swarm intelligence and evolutionary algorithms,which are used for managing distributed scheduling problems in manufacturing systems.This work focuses on journal papers discovered using Google Scholar.After reviewing the papers,in this work,we discuss the research trends of distributed scheduling problems and point out some directions for future studies.展开更多
Reconfigurable manufacturing systems （RMSs）, which possess the advantages of both dedicated serial lines and flexible manufacturing systems, were introduced in the mid-1990s to address the challenges initiated by gl...Reconfigurable manufacturing systems （RMSs）, which possess the advantages of both dedicated serial lines and flexible manufacturing systems, were introduced in the mid-1990s to address the challenges initiated by globalization. The principal goal of an RMS is to enhance the responsiveness of manufacturing systems to unforeseen changes in product demand. RMSs are cost- effective because they boost productivity, and increase the lifetime of the manufacturing system. Because of the many streams in which a product may be produced on an RMS, maintaining product precision in an RMS is a challenge. But the experience with RMS in the last 20 years indicates that product quality can be definitely maintained by inserting in-line inspection stations. In this paper, we formulate the design and operational principles for RMSs, and provide a state-of-the-art review of the design and operations methodologies of RMSs according to these principles. Finally, we propose future research directions, and deliberate on how recent intelligent manufacturing technologies may advance the design and operations of RMSs.展开更多
The management and control of material flow forms the core of manufacturing execution systems （MES） in the petrochemical industry. The bottleneck in the application of MES is the ability to match the material-flow m...The management and control of material flow forms the core of manufacturing execution systems （MES） in the petrochemical industry. The bottleneck in the application of MES is the ability to match the material-flow model with the production processes. A dynamic material-flow model is proposed in this paper after an analysis of the material-flow characteristics of the production process in a petrochemical industry. The main material-flow events are described, including the movement, storage, shifting, recycling, and elimination of the materials. The spatial and temporal characters of the material-flow events are described, and the material-flow model is constructed. The dynamic material-flow model introduced herein is the basis for other subsystems in the MES. In addition, it is the subsystem with the least scale in MES. The dynamic-modeling method of material flow has been applied in the development of the SinoMES model. It helps the petrochemical plant to manage the entire flow information related to tanks and equipments from the aspects of measurement, storage, movement, and the remaining balance of the material. As a result, it matches the production process by error elimination and data reconciliation. In addition, it facilitates the integration of application modules into the MES and guarantees the potential development of SinoMES in future applications.展开更多
A novel siphon-based divide-and-conquer(SbDaC)policy is presented in this paper for the synthesis of Petri net(PN)based liveness-enforcing supervisors(LES)for flexible manufacturing systems(FMS)prone to deadlocks or l...A novel siphon-based divide-and-conquer(SbDaC)policy is presented in this paper for the synthesis of Petri net(PN)based liveness-enforcing supervisors(LES)for flexible manufacturing systems(FMS)prone to deadlocks or livelocks.The proposed method takes an uncontrolled and bounded PN model(UPNM)of the FMS.Firstly,the reduced PNM(RPNM)is obtained from the UPNM by using PN reduction rules to reduce the computation burden.Then,the set of strict minimal siphons(SMSs)of the RPNM is computed.Next,the complementary set of SMSs is computed from the set of SMSs.By the union of these two sets,the superset of SMSs is computed.Finally,the set of subnets of the RPNM is obtained by applying the PN reduction rules to the superset of SMSs.All these subnets suffer from deadlocks.These subnets are then ordered from the smallest one to the largest one based on a criterion.To enforce liveness on these subnets,a set of control places(CPs)is computed starting from the smallest subnet to the largest one.Once all subnets are live,this process provides the LES,consisting of a set of CPs to be used for the UPNM.The live controlled PN model(CPNM)is constructed by merging the LES with the UPNM.The SbDaC policy is applicable to all classes of PNs related to FMS prone to deadlocks or livelocks.Several FMS examples are considered from the literature to highlight the applicability of the SbDaC policy.In particular,three examples are utilized to emphasize the importance,applicability and effectiveness of the SbDaC policy to realistic FMS with very large state spaces.展开更多
Our next generation of industry-lndustry 4.0-holds the promise of increased flexibility in manufacturing, along with mass customization, better quality, and improved productivity. It thus enables companies to cope wit...Our next generation of industry-lndustry 4.0-holds the promise of increased flexibility in manufacturing, along with mass customization, better quality, and improved productivity. It thus enables companies to cope with the challenges of producing increasingly individualized products with a short lead-time to market and higher quality. Intelligent manufacturing plays an important role in Industry 4.0. Typical resources are converted into intelligent objects so that they are able to sense, act, and behave within a smart environment. In order to fully understand intelligent manufacturing in the context of Industry 4.0, this paper provides a comprehensive review of associated topics such as intelligent manufacturing, Internet of Things （IoT）- enabled manufacturing, and cloud manufacturing. Similarities and differences in these topics are highlighted based on our analysis. We also review key technologies such as the loT, cyber-physical systems （CPSs）, cloud computing, big data analytics （BDA）, and information and communications technology （ICT） that are used to enable intelligent manufacturing. Next, we describe worldwide movements in intelligent manufacturing, including governmental strategic plans from different countries and strategic plans from major international companies in the European Union, United States, Japan, and China. Finally, we present current challenges and future research directions. The concepts discussed in this paper will spark new ideas in the effort to realize the much-anticipated Fourth Industrial Revolution.展开更多
In this work, a survey of companies has been produc ed from a questionnaire and in-depth inter-views. The aimof the paper is to give a current view of the use of DES (Discrete- Event Simulation) in the indust ry. The ...In this work, a survey of companies has been produc ed from a questionnaire and in-depth inter-views. The aimof the paper is to give a current view of the use of DES (Discrete- Event Simulation) in the indust ry. The companies have been selected in a wide range in e.g. size, capital turno ver and employees. The survey was restricted to Sweden, although the results may be applicable to other countries with similar industrial structure. Some of the companies investigated are also multinational with branches around the world. T o illustrate the differences in production systems different sectors have be en investigated, e.g. the manufacturing industry and energy sector. The manufact uring systems generally differ in that the energy sector is more known for high reliability in their systems and the manufacturing sector tends to work more wit h lean production. Previous surveys of manufacturing efficiency illustrate different aspects. Accor ding to one survey, more than one-third (34%) of the disturbances in two countr ies (the U.S. and Finland) were mainly caused by design-based errors and flaws. The survey also showed the scope of safety problems experienced in the implemen tation and use of flexible manufacturing systems (Jrvinen et al., 1996). Another survey in Germany reports a gap between users and non-users of DES. Man y companies that are not familiar with simulation are not aware of its benefits. The study suggested integrating simulation into the planning processes as a reg ular tool. So far, DES is mostly used in system planning, resource planning and scheduling and production planning (Hirschberg & Heitmann, 1997). The disposition of the accomplished questionnaire had been multiple-choice ques tions in a strict order. The respondents gave their views on what the interviewe r considered relevant for the survey. The questionnaire was mailed to 220 person s in May 2001; a second round for unanswered surveys was dispatched in August 20 01. Replies came from 114 respondents; thus, the reply rate to all questionnaire s sent out was 52%. The replies came in from 80 different companies. Questionswere raised regarding what kinds of decisions are taken from a simulation projec t and questions were also asked regarding the tool itself. Some common problems encountered based on the authors’ knowledge were asked in the questionnaire. The questions were sent to those who had reasonable knowledge of how to work with D ES. Supplementary in-depth interviews were also accomplished. On the question if DES facilitates the decision-making process 79% of totally 3 8 answered to a very large or a large extent. Regarding the question if DES is a useful tool for measuring the availability of equipment for example system verification 73% of 33 responded to a very large or a large extent. A majority o f the respondents genuinely see an advantage with the use of simulation, which i s an important result from the study. The cost reduction aspect of the productio n is also an advantage of DES. On the question eight answered to a very large ex tent and 23 to a large extent of total 39 replies. The question demonstrates tha t the results of a simulation model are indeed used in the real world. Finally, in the question of DES is used for staffing it is indicated that it is not so co mmonly used as for other functions asked for. The staffing issue requires good k nowledge about time measurement of manual labor. The option, however, to include manual work in a simulation model is in many programs extensive and must be a v aluable option to evaluate work intensive parts of production lines and their im provement. To conclude, it could be mentioned that DES is a tool with potential. The use is increasing and 12 of 80 companies investigated in Sweden 2001 are using it, an increase compared to previous stud-ies. Of those 12 companies, four are using t he tool to a large extent. The main advantage according to the survey beside the visualization part is that the knowledge about a system is investigated and doc umented.展开更多
According to the characteristics of flexible manufacturing systems, the article describes the equipment components and hardware architecture of flexible manufacturing systems in school. Taking welding assemble process...According to the characteristics of flexible manufacturing systems, the article describes the equipment components and hardware architecture of flexible manufacturing systems in school. Taking welding assemble process as an example to elaborate production process automation, the paper put forward a flexible manufacaxring system combined with laboratory equipment and various grades, professional knowledge and teaching characteristics and differentiated teaching programs, the creation of the laboratory project was planned and implemented to specific engineering training programs, so that students has been expanded in the depth of expertise and breadth, experimental skills and innovation capacity has been improved, the teaching effect has also been significantly improved..展开更多
Based on queuing theory, a nonlinear optimization model is proposed in this paper, which has the service load as its objective function and includes three inequality constraints of Work In Progress （WIP）. A novel tr...Based on queuing theory, a nonlinear optimization model is proposed in this paper, which has the service load as its objective function and includes three inequality constraints of Work In Progress （WIP）. A novel transformation of optimization variables is also devised and the constraints are properly combined so as to make this model into a convex one from which the Lagrangian function and the Karurh Kuhn Tucker （KKT） conditions are derived. The interior-point method for convex optimization is presented here as a computationaUy efficient tool. Finally, this model is evaluated on a real example, from which such conclusions are reached that the optimum result can ensure the full utilization of machines and the least amount of WIP in manufacturing systems; the interior-point method needs fewer iterations with significant computational savings and it is possible to make nonlinear and complicated optimization problems convexified so as to obtain the optimum.展开更多
With the combination between system simulation and virtual reality,we have established an integrated virtual refinery simulation platform,and analyzed the overall design and principal architecture.This paper introduce...With the combination between system simulation and virtual reality,we have established an integrated virtual refinery simulation platform,and analyzed the overall design and principal architecture.This paper introduces a simulation algorithm about a refinery based on virtual reality,and explains how the algorithm can be applied to the virtual refinery integrated simulation platform in detail.The virtual refinery simulation platform,which consists of a three-dimensional scene system,an integrated database system and a dynamic-static simulation system,has many applications,such as dynamic-static simulation of key process unit used as process control and oil tank blending simulation for scheduling.With the visualization and human-computer interaction for acquiring production and process data,this platform can provide effective supports on staff training related with monitoring,control and operation in refinery.Virtual refinery can also be web published through the internet and it is helpful for the distance training and education.展开更多
Deadlock resolution strategies based on siphon control are widely investigated.Their computational efficiency largely depends on siphon computation.Mixed-integer programming(MIP)can be utilized for the computation of ...Deadlock resolution strategies based on siphon control are widely investigated.Their computational efficiency largely depends on siphon computation.Mixed-integer programming(MIP)can be utilized for the computation of an emptiable siphon in a Petri net(PN).Based on it,deadlock resolution strategies can be designed without requiring complete siphon enumeration that has exponential complexity.Due to this reason,various MIP methods are proposed for various subclasses of PNs.This work proposes an innovative MIP method to compute an emptiable minimal siphon(EMS)for a subclass of PNs named S^(4)PR.In particular,many particular structural characteristics of EMS in S4 PR are formalized as constraints,which greatly reduces the solution space.Experimental results show that the proposed MIP method has higher computational efficiency.Furthermore,the proposed method allows one to determine the liveness of an ordinary S^(4)PR.展开更多
Multi-cluster tools are widely used in majority of wafer fabrication processes in semiconductor industry. Smaller lot production, thinner circuit width in wafers, larger wafer size, and maintenance have resulted in a ...Multi-cluster tools are widely used in majority of wafer fabrication processes in semiconductor industry. Smaller lot production, thinner circuit width in wafers, larger wafer size, and maintenance have resulted in a large quantity of their start-up and close-down transient periods. Yet, most of existing efforts have been concentrated on scheduling their steady states.Different from such efforts, this work schedules their transient and steady-state periods subject to wafer residency constraints. It gives the schedulability conditions for the steady-state scheduling of dual-blade robotic multi-cluster tools and a corresponding algorithm for finding an optimal schedule. Based on the robot synchronization conditions, a linear program is proposed to figure out an optimal schedule for a start-up period, which ensures a tool to enter the desired optimal steady state. Another linear program is proposed to find an optimal schedule for a closedown period that evolves from the steady state period. Finally,industrial cases are presented to illustrate how the provided method outperforms the existing approach in terms of system throughput improvement.展开更多
Academician of the CAE member Youxian Sun from Zhejiang University initiated Digital Twins and Applications(ISSN 2995-2182).It is published by Zhejiang University Press and the Institution of Engineering and Technolog...Academician of the CAE member Youxian Sun from Zhejiang University initiated Digital Twins and Applications(ISSN 2995-2182).It is published by Zhejiang University Press and the Institution of Engineering and Technology and sponsored by Zhejiang Univer-sity.Digital Twins and Applications aim to provide a specialised platform for researchers,practitioners,and industry experts to publish high-quality,state-of-the-art research on digital twin technologies and their applications.展开更多
Some wafer fabrication processes performed by cluster tools require revisiting. With wafer revisiting, a cluster tool is very difficult to be scheduled due to a large number of possible schedules for the revisiting pr...Some wafer fabrication processes performed by cluster tools require revisiting. With wafer revisiting, a cluster tool is very difficult to be scheduled due to a large number of possible schedules for the revisiting process. Atomic layer deposition （ALD） is a typical process with wafer revisiting that should be performed by cluster tools. This paper discusses the scheduling problem of single-arm cluster tools for the ALD process. In scheduling such a system, the most difficult part is to schedule the revisiting process such that the cycle time is minimized. Thus, this paper studies the revisiting process of ALD with revisiting times k = 3, 4, and 5, and analytical expressions are obtained to calculate the cycle time for the k possible schedules. Then, the schedule with the minimal cycle time is the optimal one. In this way, the scheduling problem of such a revisiting process becomes very simple and this is a significant improvement in scheduling cluster tools with wafer revisiting. Illustrative example is presented to show the application of the proposed method.展开更多
In order to make reconfigurable manufacturing system （RMS） adapt to the fluctuations of production demand with the minimum number of reconflgurations in its full life cycle, we presented a method to design RMS based...In order to make reconfigurable manufacturing system （RMS） adapt to the fluctuations of production demand with the minimum number of reconflgurations in its full life cycle, we presented a method to design RMS based on the balanced distribution of functional characteristics for ma- chines. With this method, functional characteristics were classified based on machining functions of cutting-tools and machining accuracy of machines. Then the optimization objective was set as the to- tal shortest mobile distance that all the workpieces are moved from one machine to another, and an improved genetic algorithm （GA） was proposed to optimize the configuration. The elitist strategy was used to enhance the global optimization ability of GA, and excellent gene pool was designed to maintain the diversity of population. Software Matlab was used to realize the algorithm, and a case study of simulation was used to evaluate the method.展开更多
基金supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(NSFC)(62202192 and 72101094)the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars of China(51825502).
文摘As one of the most classical scheduling problems,flexible job shop scheduling problems(FJSP)find widespread applications in modern intelligent manufacturing systems.However,the majority of meta-heuristic methods for solving FJSP in the literature are population-based evolutionary algorithms,which are complex and time-consuming.In this paper,we propose a fast effective singlesolution based local search algorithm with an innovative adaptive weighting-based local search(AWLS)technique for solving FJSP.The adaptive weighting technique assigns weights to each operation and adaptively updates them during the exploration.AWLS integrates a Tabu Search strategy and the adaptive weighting technique to smooth the landscape of the search space and enhance the exploration diversity.Computational experiments on 313 well-known benchmark instances demonstrate that AWLS is highly competitive with state-of-the-art algorithms in terms of both solution quality and computational efficiency,despite of its simplicity.Specifically,AWLS improves the previous best-known results in the literature on 33 instances and match the best-known results on the remaining ones except for only one under the same time limit of up to 300 s.As a strongly non-deterministic polynomia(NP)-hard problem which has been extensively studied for nearly half a century,breaking the records on these classic instances is an arduous task.Nevertheless,AWLS establishes new records on 8 challenging instances whose previous best records were established by a state-of-the-art meta-heuristic algorithm and a famous industrial solver.
文摘Dear Editor,This letter focuses on the distributed cooperative regulation problem for a class of networked re-entrant manufacturing systems(RMSs).The networked system is structured with a three-tier architecture:the production line,the manufacturing layer and the workshop layer.The dynamics of re-entrant production lines are governed by hyperbolic partial differential equations(PDEs)based on the law of mass conservation.
文摘Based on the system of electric power supply for flexible manufacturing systems (FMS), a study has been carried out on the intelligent safety examination, monitoring and maintenance of its running environment. On the basis of the specific feature of the power supply network of an FMS, real time monitoring system of the power supply network and the fault diagnostic expert system for the power equipment have been designed. This system can diagnose not only definite fault phenomena, but also fuzzy, uncertain fault phenomena as well. Fault diagnostic knowledge base for the power equipment has been founded hierarchy architecture model and the method of fault tree analysis. Feasibility of this system has been proved by computer simulation.
文摘Today＇s manufacturing cnvironmem forces manufacturing companies to make as many product variations as possible at affordable costs within a short time. Mass customisation is one of most important technologies for companies to achieve their objectives. Efforts to mass customisation should be made on two aspects： （1） To modularize products and make them as less differences as possible; （2） To design manufacturing resources and make them provide as many processes variations as possible. This paper reports our recent work on aspect （2）, i.e. how to design a reconfignrable manufacturing system （RMS） so that it can be competent to accomplish various processes optimally; Reconfignrable robot system （RRS） is taken as an example. RMS design involves architecture design and configuration design, and configuration design is further divided in design analysis and design synthesis. Axiomatic design theory （ADT） is applied to architecture design, the features and issues of RRS configuration design are discussed, automatic modelling method is developed for design analysis, and concurrent design methodology is presented for design synthesis.
文摘This article presents a comprehensive mathematical model for the design and analysis of Dynamic Cellular Manufacturing Systems （DCMS）. The proposed DCMS model considers several manufacturing attributes such as multi period production planning, dynamic system reconfiguration, duplicate machines, machine capacity, the available time for workers, worker assignments, and machine procurement. The objective is to minimize total costs; consisting of holding cost, outsourcing cost, inter-cell material handling cost, maintenance and overhead cost, machine relocation cost. While a study of published articles in the area of Cellular Manufacturing Systems （CMS） shows that workforce management issues have not sufficiently been addressed in the literature, the model presented also incorporates CMS workforce management issues such as salaries, hiring and firing costs of workers in addition to the manufacturing attributes. In-depth discussions on the results for two numerical examples are presented to illustrate applications of the proposed model. The model developed aims to raise the envelope by expanding and improving several CMS models previously presented in the literature.
文摘Information and communication technology is undergoing rapid development, and many disruptive technologies, such as cloud computing, Internet of Things, big data, and artificial intelligence, have emerged. These technologies are permeating the manufacturing industry and enable the fusion of physical and virtual worlds through cyber-physical systems （CPS）, which mark the advent of the fourth stage of industrial production （i.e., Industry 4.0）. The widespread application of CPS in manufacturing environments renders manufacturing sys- tems increasingly smart. To advance research on the implementation of Industry 4.0, this study examines smart manufacturing systems for Industry 4.0. First, a conceptual framework of smart manufacturing systems for Industry 4.0 is presented. Second, demonstrative scenarios that pertain to smart design, smart machining, smart control, smart monitoring, and smart scheduling, are presented. Key technologies and their possible applications to Industry 4.0 smart manufacturing systems are reviewed based on these demonstrative scenarios. Finally, challenges and future perspectives are identified and discussed.
基金supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Nos.61603169,61703220,and 61873328)China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Funded Project(No.2019T120569)+3 种基金Shandong Province Outstanding Youth Innovation Team Project of Colleges and Universities of China(No.2020RWG011)Shandong Province Colleges and Universities Youth Innovation Talent Introduction and Education Programthe Faculty Research Grants(FRG)from Macao University of Science and TechnologyShandong Provincial Key Laboratory for Novel Distributed Computer Software Technology。
文摘Currently,manufacturing enterprises face increasingly fierce market competition due to the various demands of customers and the rapid development of economic globalization.Hence,they have to extend their production mode into distributed environments and establish multiple factories in various geographical locations.Nowadays,distributed manufacturing systems have been widely adopted in industrial production processes.In recent years,many studies have been done on the modeling and optimization of distributed scheduling problems.This work provides a literature review on distributed scheduling problems in intelligent manufacturing systems.By summarizing and evaluating existing studies on distributed scheduling problems,we analyze the achievements and current research status in this field and discuss ongoing studies.Insights regarding prior works are discussed to uncover future research directions,particularly swarm intelligence and evolutionary algorithms,which are used for managing distributed scheduling problems in manufacturing systems.This work focuses on journal papers discovered using Google Scholar.After reviewing the papers,in this work,we discuss the research trends of distributed scheduling problems and point out some directions for future studies.
文摘Reconfigurable manufacturing systems （RMSs）, which possess the advantages of both dedicated serial lines and flexible manufacturing systems, were introduced in the mid-1990s to address the challenges initiated by globalization. The principal goal of an RMS is to enhance the responsiveness of manufacturing systems to unforeseen changes in product demand. RMSs are cost- effective because they boost productivity, and increase the lifetime of the manufacturing system. Because of the many streams in which a product may be produced on an RMS, maintaining product precision in an RMS is a challenge. But the experience with RMS in the last 20 years indicates that product quality can be definitely maintained by inserting in-line inspection stations. In this paper, we formulate the design and operational principles for RMSs, and provide a state-of-the-art review of the design and operations methodologies of RMSs according to these principles. Finally, we propose future research directions, and deliberate on how recent intelligent manufacturing technologies may advance the design and operations of RMSs.
基金the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (No.2007AA04Z191).
文摘The management and control of material flow forms the core of manufacturing execution systems （MES） in the petrochemical industry. The bottleneck in the application of MES is the ability to match the material-flow model with the production processes. A dynamic material-flow model is proposed in this paper after an analysis of the material-flow characteristics of the production process in a petrochemical industry. The main material-flow events are described, including the movement, storage, shifting, recycling, and elimination of the materials. The spatial and temporal characters of the material-flow events are described, and the material-flow model is constructed. The dynamic material-flow model introduced herein is the basis for other subsystems in the MES. In addition, it is the subsystem with the least scale in MES. The dynamic-modeling method of material flow has been applied in the development of the SinoMES model. It helps the petrochemical plant to manage the entire flow information related to tanks and equipments from the aspects of measurement, storage, movement, and the remaining balance of the material. As a result, it matches the production process by error elimination and data reconciliation. In addition, it facilitates the integration of application modules into the MES and guarantees the potential development of SinoMES in future applications.
基金The authors extend their appreciation to King Saud University,Saudi Arabia for funding this work through the Ongoing Research Funding Program(ORF-2025-704),King Saud University,Riyadh,Saudi Arabia.
文摘A novel siphon-based divide-and-conquer(SbDaC)policy is presented in this paper for the synthesis of Petri net(PN)based liveness-enforcing supervisors(LES)for flexible manufacturing systems(FMS)prone to deadlocks or livelocks.The proposed method takes an uncontrolled and bounded PN model(UPNM)of the FMS.Firstly,the reduced PNM(RPNM)is obtained from the UPNM by using PN reduction rules to reduce the computation burden.Then,the set of strict minimal siphons(SMSs)of the RPNM is computed.Next,the complementary set of SMSs is computed from the set of SMSs.By the union of these two sets,the superset of SMSs is computed.Finally,the set of subnets of the RPNM is obtained by applying the PN reduction rules to the superset of SMSs.All these subnets suffer from deadlocks.These subnets are then ordered from the smallest one to the largest one based on a criterion.To enforce liveness on these subnets,a set of control places(CPs)is computed starting from the smallest subnet to the largest one.Once all subnets are live,this process provides the LES,consisting of a set of CPs to be used for the UPNM.The live controlled PN model(CPNM)is constructed by merging the LES with the UPNM.The SbDaC policy is applicable to all classes of PNs related to FMS prone to deadlocks or livelocks.Several FMS examples are considered from the literature to highlight the applicability of the SbDaC policy.In particular,three examples are utilized to emphasize the importance,applicability and effectiveness of the SbDaC policy to realistic FMS with very large state spaces.
文摘Our next generation of industry-lndustry 4.0-holds the promise of increased flexibility in manufacturing, along with mass customization, better quality, and improved productivity. It thus enables companies to cope with the challenges of producing increasingly individualized products with a short lead-time to market and higher quality. Intelligent manufacturing plays an important role in Industry 4.0. Typical resources are converted into intelligent objects so that they are able to sense, act, and behave within a smart environment. In order to fully understand intelligent manufacturing in the context of Industry 4.0, this paper provides a comprehensive review of associated topics such as intelligent manufacturing, Internet of Things （IoT）- enabled manufacturing, and cloud manufacturing. Similarities and differences in these topics are highlighted based on our analysis. We also review key technologies such as the loT, cyber-physical systems （CPSs）, cloud computing, big data analytics （BDA）, and information and communications technology （ICT） that are used to enable intelligent manufacturing. Next, we describe worldwide movements in intelligent manufacturing, including governmental strategic plans from different countries and strategic plans from major international companies in the European Union, United States, Japan, and China. Finally, we present current challenges and future research directions. The concepts discussed in this paper will spark new ideas in the effort to realize the much-anticipated Fourth Industrial Revolution.
文摘In this work, a survey of companies has been produc ed from a questionnaire and in-depth inter-views. The aimof the paper is to give a current view of the use of DES (Discrete- Event Simulation) in the indust ry. The companies have been selected in a wide range in e.g. size, capital turno ver and employees. The survey was restricted to Sweden, although the results may be applicable to other countries with similar industrial structure. Some of the companies investigated are also multinational with branches around the world. T o illustrate the differences in production systems different sectors have be en investigated, e.g. the manufacturing industry and energy sector. The manufact uring systems generally differ in that the energy sector is more known for high reliability in their systems and the manufacturing sector tends to work more wit h lean production. Previous surveys of manufacturing efficiency illustrate different aspects. Accor ding to one survey, more than one-third (34%) of the disturbances in two countr ies (the U.S. and Finland) were mainly caused by design-based errors and flaws. The survey also showed the scope of safety problems experienced in the implemen tation and use of flexible manufacturing systems (Jrvinen et al., 1996). Another survey in Germany reports a gap between users and non-users of DES. Man y companies that are not familiar with simulation are not aware of its benefits. The study suggested integrating simulation into the planning processes as a reg ular tool. So far, DES is mostly used in system planning, resource planning and scheduling and production planning (Hirschberg & Heitmann, 1997). The disposition of the accomplished questionnaire had been multiple-choice ques tions in a strict order. The respondents gave their views on what the interviewe r considered relevant for the survey. The questionnaire was mailed to 220 person s in May 2001; a second round for unanswered surveys was dispatched in August 20 01. Replies came from 114 respondents; thus, the reply rate to all questionnaire s sent out was 52%. The replies came in from 80 different companies. Questionswere raised regarding what kinds of decisions are taken from a simulation projec t and questions were also asked regarding the tool itself. Some common problems encountered based on the authors’ knowledge were asked in the questionnaire. The questions were sent to those who had reasonable knowledge of how to work with D ES. Supplementary in-depth interviews were also accomplished. On the question if DES facilitates the decision-making process 79% of totally 3 8 answered to a very large or a large extent. Regarding the question if DES is a useful tool for measuring the availability of equipment for example system verification 73% of 33 responded to a very large or a large extent. A majority o f the respondents genuinely see an advantage with the use of simulation, which i s an important result from the study. The cost reduction aspect of the productio n is also an advantage of DES. On the question eight answered to a very large ex tent and 23 to a large extent of total 39 replies. The question demonstrates tha t the results of a simulation model are indeed used in the real world. Finally, in the question of DES is used for staffing it is indicated that it is not so co mmonly used as for other functions asked for. The staffing issue requires good k nowledge about time measurement of manual labor. The option, however, to include manual work in a simulation model is in many programs extensive and must be a v aluable option to evaluate work intensive parts of production lines and their im provement. To conclude, it could be mentioned that DES is a tool with potential. The use is increasing and 12 of 80 companies investigated in Sweden 2001 are using it, an increase compared to previous stud-ies. Of those 12 companies, four are using t he tool to a large extent. The main advantage according to the survey beside the visualization part is that the knowledge about a system is investigated and doc umented.
文摘According to the characteristics of flexible manufacturing systems, the article describes the equipment components and hardware architecture of flexible manufacturing systems in school. Taking welding assemble process as an example to elaborate production process automation, the paper put forward a flexible manufacaxring system combined with laboratory equipment and various grades, professional knowledge and teaching characteristics and differentiated teaching programs, the creation of the laboratory project was planned and implemented to specific engineering training programs, so that students has been expanded in the depth of expertise and breadth, experimental skills and innovation capacity has been improved, the teaching effect has also been significantly improved..
文摘Based on queuing theory, a nonlinear optimization model is proposed in this paper, which has the service load as its objective function and includes three inequality constraints of Work In Progress （WIP）. A novel transformation of optimization variables is also devised and the constraints are properly combined so as to make this model into a convex one from which the Lagrangian function and the Karurh Kuhn Tucker （KKT） conditions are derived. The interior-point method for convex optimization is presented here as a computationaUy efficient tool. Finally, this model is evaluated on a real example, from which such conclusions are reached that the optimum result can ensure the full utilization of machines and the least amount of WIP in manufacturing systems; the interior-point method needs fewer iterations with significant computational savings and it is possible to make nonlinear and complicated optimization problems convexified so as to obtain the optimum.
基金supported by The National High Technology Research and Development Program of China(2009AA044701)
文摘With the combination between system simulation and virtual reality,we have established an integrated virtual refinery simulation platform,and analyzed the overall design and principal architecture.This paper introduces a simulation algorithm about a refinery based on virtual reality,and explains how the algorithm can be applied to the virtual refinery integrated simulation platform in detail.The virtual refinery simulation platform,which consists of a three-dimensional scene system,an integrated database system and a dynamic-static simulation system,has many applications,such as dynamic-static simulation of key process unit used as process control and oil tank blending simulation for scheduling.With the visualization and human-computer interaction for acquiring production and process data,this platform can provide effective supports on staff training related with monitoring,control and operation in refinery.Virtual refinery can also be web published through the internet and it is helpful for the distance training and education.
基金supported in part by Zhejiang Provincial Key Research and Development Program(2018C01084)Zhejiang Natural Science Foundation(LQ20F020009)Zhejiang Gongshang University,Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of New Network Standards and Technologies(2013E10012)。
文摘Deadlock resolution strategies based on siphon control are widely investigated.Their computational efficiency largely depends on siphon computation.Mixed-integer programming(MIP)can be utilized for the computation of an emptiable siphon in a Petri net(PN).Based on it,deadlock resolution strategies can be designed without requiring complete siphon enumeration that has exponential complexity.Due to this reason,various MIP methods are proposed for various subclasses of PNs.This work proposes an innovative MIP method to compute an emptiable minimal siphon(EMS)for a subclass of PNs named S^(4)PR.In particular,many particular structural characteristics of EMS in S4 PR are formalized as constraints,which greatly reduces the solution space.Experimental results show that the proposed MIP method has higher computational efficiency.Furthermore,the proposed method allows one to determine the liveness of an ordinary S^(4)PR.
基金the National Natural Science Foundation of China(61673123,61803397)the Science and Technology Development Fund(FDCT)of Macao(106/2016/A3,005/2018/A1,011/2017/A,0017/2019/A1)
文摘Multi-cluster tools are widely used in majority of wafer fabrication processes in semiconductor industry. Smaller lot production, thinner circuit width in wafers, larger wafer size, and maintenance have resulted in a large quantity of their start-up and close-down transient periods. Yet, most of existing efforts have been concentrated on scheduling their steady states.Different from such efforts, this work schedules their transient and steady-state periods subject to wafer residency constraints. It gives the schedulability conditions for the steady-state scheduling of dual-blade robotic multi-cluster tools and a corresponding algorithm for finding an optimal schedule. Based on the robot synchronization conditions, a linear program is proposed to figure out an optimal schedule for a start-up period, which ensures a tool to enter the desired optimal steady state. Another linear program is proposed to find an optimal schedule for a closedown period that evolves from the steady state period. Finally,industrial cases are presented to illustrate how the provided method outperforms the existing approach in terms of system throughput improvement.
文摘Academician of the CAE member Youxian Sun from Zhejiang University initiated Digital Twins and Applications(ISSN 2995-2182).It is published by Zhejiang University Press and the Institution of Engineering and Technology and sponsored by Zhejiang Univer-sity.Digital Twins and Applications aim to provide a specialised platform for researchers,practitioners,and industry experts to publish high-quality,state-of-the-art research on digital twin technologies and their applications.
基金supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 60974098)Research Foundation for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education (No. 20094420110002)
文摘Some wafer fabrication processes performed by cluster tools require revisiting. With wafer revisiting, a cluster tool is very difficult to be scheduled due to a large number of possible schedules for the revisiting process. Atomic layer deposition （ALD） is a typical process with wafer revisiting that should be performed by cluster tools. This paper discusses the scheduling problem of single-arm cluster tools for the ALD process. In scheduling such a system, the most difficult part is to schedule the revisiting process such that the cycle time is minimized. Thus, this paper studies the revisiting process of ALD with revisiting times k = 3, 4, and 5, and analytical expressions are obtained to calculate the cycle time for the k possible schedules. Then, the schedule with the minimal cycle time is the optimal one. In this way, the scheduling problem of such a revisiting process becomes very simple and this is a significant improvement in scheduling cluster tools with wafer revisiting. Illustrative example is presented to show the application of the proposed method.
基金Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(51105039)
文摘In order to make reconfigurable manufacturing system （RMS） adapt to the fluctuations of production demand with the minimum number of reconflgurations in its full life cycle, we presented a method to design RMS based on the balanced distribution of functional characteristics for ma- chines. With this method, functional characteristics were classified based on machining functions of cutting-tools and machining accuracy of machines. Then the optimization objective was set as the to- tal shortest mobile distance that all the workpieces are moved from one machine to another, and an improved genetic algorithm （GA） was proposed to optimize the configuration. The elitist strategy was used to enhance the global optimization ability of GA, and excellent gene pool was designed to maintain the diversity of population. Software Matlab was used to realize the algorithm, and a case study of simulation was used to evaluate the method.
