Abstract
Flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) are needed to provide manufacturing operations with the capability to adjust, in real time, to changes in the manufacturing environment. Realization of the goals of flexible manufacturing is governed by the ability of the FMS to maintain adequate information on the factory to assist in generating scenarios from product planning to operations and performance. This leads to a view where the factory is represented as an integrated information system. To facilitate the analysis of information requirements and the design of information systems for flexible manufacturing, an expert support system (ESS) which can be used to model and study the various structures is described. This ESS uses the information cell model to build these information structures. Petri net representations of these structures and their interactions are then constructed. The ESS may now be used to exercise these models and study their performance using time and cost measures.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ahmad, S. I. and Farah, F. N. (1986) Flexible manufacturing systems: An information system framework, in Modelling and Design of Flexible Manufacturing Systems (ed. AndrewKusiak), Elsevier Science, Amsterdam.
Alter, S. (1986) Decision support systems for manufacturing, Data Processing 25: 10, 37–38.
Appleton, D. S. (1984) The state of CIM, Datamation 30: 21, 66–72.
Farah, B. N. (1984) A decision support system for the analysis and design of MIS, Proc. AIDS National Conference.
Goldhar, J. D. (1984) (Interview), What flexible automation means to your business, Mod. Mater. Handl. 39: 13, 63–37.
Harmon, P. and King, D. (1985) Expert Systems, Wiley, New York.
Jaffe, M. (1983) Decision support systems for manufacturing, Inforsystems 30: 7, 112–114.
Kimemia, J. and Gershwin, S. B. (1983) An algorithm for computer control of a flexible manufacturing system, IIE Trans. 15: 4, 353–362.
Kusiak, A. (1985) Material Handling in Flexible Manufacturing Systems, Material Flow, Elsevier Science, Amsterdam.
Martinez, J., Alla, H., and Silva, M. (1985) Petri nets for the specifications of FMSs, Modelling and Design of Flexible Manufacturing Systems (ed. AndrewKusiak), Elsevier Science, Amsterdam.
Modern Meterials Handling (1983) Flexible manufacturing systems, Vol. 37, No. 13, ‘Their tremendous potential’, pp. 52–57, ‘Handling's critical role’, pp. 58–62, ‘Flexibility for less money than an convential systems’, pp. 62–64.
Sadowski, R. P. (1984) Computer integrated manufacturing, Ind. Eng. 16: 1, 34–40.
Steck, K. E. (1983) Formulation and solution of nonlinear, integer production planning problem for flexible manufacturing, Management Sci. 29: 3, 273–275.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Farah, B.N. Expert systems: An application in flexible manufacturing. J Intell Robot Syst 1, 73–88 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00437321
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00437321