A framework for adaptive control of virtual production systems

Agile manufacturing (AM) requires manufacturing systems to be agile to react quickly to sudden and unpredictable changes in customer demand for their products and services. To meet with this requirement, a paradigm in which several virtual production systems (VPSs) are formed by organizing resources belonging to one or more manufacturing systems according to each individual customer ordered products is proposed in the paper. Since this paradigm combines the two resource structures, that is, functional and product-oriented ones, it can ensure a manufacturing system to be both flexible and easier to be controlled. Furthermore the structure of adaptive controllers of VPSs is presented based on the principle of adaptive control, and the four adaptive mechanisms are specified. The adaptive control can make a VPS to rapidly respond to disturbances and changes encountered during the production of a specific product. The coordination is set up among adaptive controllers of each individual VPSs to resolve conflicts for a shared resource and to optimize manufacturing systems globally.