MULTI-AGENT APPROACH FOR DISTRIBUTED FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS

This paper presents a multi agent model for the realization of the tasks dispatched in a distributed flexible manufacturing system.Agent behavior is described in terms of its capabilities and related environment.According to task execution forms,two kinds of task allocation methods are used and the proper communication mechanisms and negotiation mechanisms are involved to guarantee a high performance and high reliability for a DFMS.

Management and Control of Outsourcing in Dispersed Network Manufacturing Systems

The trend of economic globalisation and advances in i nformation technology has led to the emergence of dispersed manufacturing system s as a form of the virtual organisation. New manufacturing strategy pays more at tention to the management of the total value chain and therefore puts emphasis o n outsourcing. In fact, outsourcing is an efficient way of utilizing available r esources and has become one key aspect of the manufacturing strategy. Improved d ecision and organization on outsourcing will result in cost production and short er lead-times. However, most concepts and practice of traditional outsourcing do not adapt to t he changing environment and meet increasing performance requirements. On the oth er hand, virtual organisations might display instability between pure outsourcin g and establishing alliance. Balance and trade-off between independent agents a nd creating alliance are thus required. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to develop a model to support decision-making, management and control on outsou rcing in a dispersed network manufacturing system and to discuss several key iss ues that are relevant to the relationship between the agents of the network. Dev elopment of the model will deploy Applied System Theory and will be built on fou ndations of earlier research on industrial management such the theories of Outso urcing, Order Entry Points, Design of Organisations and Logistic Control. The is sues that will be addressed in this paper are: · The selection of suppliers and co-makers; · Communication between suppliers and clients; · The mechanisms for profit-sharing between agents; · The product data management to integrate the knowledge of the different agent s into product design. Industrial companies will benefit from this research by the practical methods an d implementation extending their business models beyond concepts for outsourcing and alliances. Additionally, the exploration will lead to proactive contributio n of manufacturing during engineering, which would improve management and contro l of dispersed manufacturing systems.

Study on Robot Sequencing Model in Flexible Manufacturing System Using Timed Petri Net

In a flexible manufacturing system, both the productivity and the flexibility of the manufacturing processes are highly influenced by robot sequencing. In this paper a petri net based approach for sequencing of industrial robot in a flexible manufacturing cell is presented and a decision structure for robot sequencing based on different criteria is described.

Cloud edge integrated security architecture of new cloud manufacturing system

With the rapid development of cloud manufacturing technology and the new generation of artificial intelligence technology,the new cloud manufacturing system(NCMS)built on the connotation of cloud manufacturing 3.0 presents a new business model of“Internet of everything,intelligent leading,data driving,shared services,cross-border integration,and universal innovation”.The network boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred,NCMS is facing security risks such as equipment unauthorized use,account theft,static and extensive access control policies,unauthorized access,supply chain attacks,sensitive data leaks,and industrial control vulnerability attacks.Traditional security architectures mainly use information security technology,which cannot meet the active security protection requirements of NCMS.In order to solve the above problems,this paper proposes an integrated cloud-edge-terminal security system architecture of NCMS.It adopts the zero trust concept and effectively integrates multiple security capabilities such as network,equipment,cloud computing environment,application,identity,and data.It adopts a new access control mode of“continuous verification+dynamic authorization”,classified access control mechanisms such as attribute-based access control,rolebased access control,policy-based access control,and a new data security protection system based on blockchain,achieving“trustworthy subject identity,controllable access behavior,and effective protection of subject and object resources”.This architecture provides an active security protection method for NCMS in the digital transformation of large enterprises,and can effectively enhance network security protection capabilities and cope with increasingly severe network security situations.

Robust interface and excellent as-built mechanical properties of Ti–6Al–4V fabricated through laser-aided additive manufacturing with powder and wire

The feasibility of manufacturing Ti-6Al-4V samples through a combination of laser-aided additive manufacturing with powder(LAAM_(p))and wire(LAAM_(w))was explored.A process study was first conducted to successfully circumvent defects in Ti-6Al-4V deposits for LAAM_(p) and LAAM_(w),respectively.With the optimized process parameters,robust interfaces were achieved between powder/wire deposits and the forged substrate,as well as between powder and wire deposits.Microstructure characterization results revealed the epitaxial prior β grains in the deposited Ti-6Al-4V,wherein the powder deposit was dominated by a finerα′microstructure and the wire deposit was characterized by lamellar α phases.The mechanisms of microstructure formation and correlation with mechanical behavior were analyzed and discussed.The mechanical properties of the interfacial samples can meet the requirements of the relevant Aerospace Material Specifications(AMS 6932)even without post heat treatment.No fracture occurred within the interfacial area,further suggesting the robust interface.The findings of this study highlighted the feasibility of combining LAAM_(p) and LAAM_(w) in the direct manufacturing of Ti-6Al-4V parts in accordance with the required dimensional resolution and deposition rate,together with sound strength and ductility balance in the as-built condition.

Exploration and Application Practice of Energy Conservation Theory and Method in Steel Manufacturing Process System

This article briefly discusses the theoretical basis and overall goals of energy conservation in the steel manufacturing process system.It is proposed that in the process of implementing system energy conservation,it is necessary to fully recognize and utilize the characteristics and functional advantages of the steel manufacturing process,pay more attention to energy quality,firmly grasp the overall goal of system optimization,focus on the integrated optimization of gas,steam,and waste heat systems,and propose the idea of constructing a"steel chemi-cal gas electricity heating cooling multi generation system".Based on practice,the main principles,models,and effects of implementing systematic energy conservation in steel enterprises have been proposed.

A HOLONIC FRAMEWORK OF RECONFIGURABLE SHOP FLOOR CONTROL SYSTEMS IN AUTOMATED MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS

The agility and the flexibility of the current shop floor control systems have been limited so far, owing to the lack of structural flexibility and agility in its control software layer. Most of them are based on traditional hierarchical architecture and the top down approach and depend structurally on their specific configuration and job scheduling. Not only can they hardly satisfactorily adapt to these increasing changes and disturbances, but also make the redevelopment and maintenance of shop floor control system (SFCS) to need high cost and much time. And SFCS based on the heterarchical architecture don′t provide a predictable and high performance system, especially not in the heterogeneous environments, where the resources are scarce and the current decisions have serious repercussions on the future performances. For this reason, the heterarchical control is hardly applied in industry. Obviously, it is necessary to develop a new structural framework of reconfigurable SFCS to improve their agility, flexibility and maintainability. This paper presents a holonic framework of reconfigurable SFCS based on holonic manufacturing concepts. The framework is composed of resource holons, product holons and other staff holons. The model of each holon and the co operative mechanisms of holons are described. To verify the proposed approach experimentally, a prototype reconfigurable SFCS for a flexible manufacturing shop floor producing discrete parts is implemented.

Development of a distributed and integratable manufacturing execution system framework

Using remote method invocation (RMI) and a distributed object-oriented technique, this paper presents a systematic approach to developing a manufacturing execution system (MES) framework, which is open, modularized, distributed, configurable, interoperable and maintainable. Moreover, the design patterns for the framework .are developed and a variety of functional components are designed by inheriting appropriate patterns. And then an application is constructed by invoking corresponding methods of related components. An MES system implementing the framework and design patterns can be facilely integrated with other manufacturing applications, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and floor control system (FCS) .

BIO-INSPIRED SELF-ADAPTIVE MANUFACTURING SYSTEM CONTROL ARCHITECTURE

Future manufacturing systems need to cope with frequent changes and disturbances, therefore their control architectures require constant adaptability, agility, stability, self-organization, intelligence, and robustness. Bio-inspired manufacturing system can well satisfy these requirements. For this purpose, by referencing the biological organization structure and the mechanism, a bio-inspired manufacturing cell is presented from a novel view, and then a bio-inspired self-adaptive manufacturing model is established based on the ultra-short feedback mechanism of the neuro-endocrine system. A hio-inspired self-adaptive manufacturing system coordinated model is also established based on the neuro-endocrine-immunity system （NEIS）. Finally, an example based on pheromone communication mechanism indicates that the robustness of the whole manufacturing system is improved by bio-inspired technologies.

MANUFACTURING SYSTEM SCHEDULING BASED ON MULTI-AGENT COOPERATION GAME

Aiming at the flexible manufacturing system with multi-machining and multi-assembly equipment, a new scheduling algorithm is proposed to decompose the assembly structure of the products, thus obtaining simple scheduling problems and forming the cOrrespOnding agents. Then, the importance and the restriction of each agent are cOnsidered, to obtain an order of simple scheduling problems based on the cooperation game theory. With this order, the scheduling of sub-questions is implemented in term of rules, and the almost optimal scheduling results for meeting the restriction can be obtained. Experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheduling algorithm.

QUALITY ASSURANCE INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR AGILE MANUFACTURING

The customer driven dynamic global market and geographical distribution of collaborating partners bring new challenges to the development of quality assurance information system (QAIS) for agile manufacturing. With recent dramatic advances in information technology, firstly the requirements of QAIS are examined in agile manufacturing environment, then a new implementation framework of a distributed QAIS is presented, where a deve loping environment of QAIS is established and some critical techniques are studied. Finally a prototype system based on world wide web (WWW) is accomplished.

Intelligent Examination Monitoring and Maintenance for the Safety of Operation of Flexible Manufacturing Systems

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.

Semantic web-based networked manufacturing knowledge retrieval system

To deal with a lack of semantic interoperability of traditional knowledge retrieval approaches, a semantic-based networked manufacturing （NM） knowledge retrieval architecture is proposed, which offers a series of tools for supporting the sharing of knowledge and promoting NM collaboration. A 5-tuple based semantic information retrieval model is proposed, which includes the interoperation on the semantic layer, and a test process is given for this model. The recall ratio and the precision ratio of manufacturing knowledge retrieval are proved to be greatly improved by evaluation. Thus, a practical and reliable approach based on the semantic web is provided for solving the correlated concrete problems in regional networked manufacturing.

MANUFACTURING SERVICE SYSTEM BASED ON WEB SERVICES FOR PARALLEL KINEMATICS MACHINES

Parallel kinematics machine （PKM） is advantageous over the serial machine tools in processing the complex-surface products. A manufacturing service system for PKM is developed to provide the services of the complex-surface machining for potential geographically-dispersed manufacturing enterprises. In order to easily in- tegrate the external system, Web services are used to encapsulate post-processing functions of PKM legacy sys- tems, including compilation, workspace calculation, interfere calibration, and kinematics transformation. A ser- vice-oriented architecture（SOA） is proposed for the cooperative work between the PKM system and its client. The workflow and the function module of this manufacturing service system are presented. An example shows that as a result of SOA and loose coupling, such a Web service-based manufacturing service system is easier to in- tegrate and interoperate with its client. Meanwhile, the system decreases the manufacturing cost and improves the efficiency than its former kind of distributed system.

Human Cyber Physical Systems(HCPSs)in the Context of New-Generation Intelligent Manufacturing

An intelligent manufacturing system is a composite intelligent system comprising humans,cyber systems,and physical systems with the aim of achieving specific manufacturing goals at an optimized level.This kind of intelligent system is called a human-cyber-physical system(HCPS).In terms of technology,HCPSs can both reveal technological principles and form the technological architecture for intelligent manufacturing.It can be concluded that the essence of intelligent manufacturing is to design,construct,and apply HCPSs in various cases and at different levels.With advances in information technology,intelligent manufacturing has passed through the stages of digital manufacturing and digital-networked manufacturing,and is evolving toward new-generation intelligent manufacturing(NGIM).NGIM is characterized by the in-depth integration of new-generation artificial intelligence(AI)technology(i.e.,enabling technology)with advanced manufacturing technology(i.e.,root technology);it is the core driving force of the new industrial revolution.In this study,the evolutionary footprint of intelligent manufacturing is reviewed from the perspective of HCPSs,and the implications,characteristics,technical frame,and key technologies of HCPSs for NGIM are then discussed in depth.Finally,an outlook of the major challenges of HCPSs for NGIM is proposed.

Digital Twins and Cyber Physical Systems toward Smart Manufacturing and Industry 4.0:Correlation and Comparison

State-of-the-art technologies such as the Internet of Things(IoT),cloud computing(CC),big data analytics(BDA),and artificial intelligence(AI)have greatly stimulated the development of smart manufacturing.An important prerequisite for smart manufacturing is cyber-physical integration,which is increasingly being embraced by manufacturers.As the preferred means of such integration,cyber-physical systems(CPS)and digital twins(DTs)have gained extensive attention from researchers and practitioners in industry.With feedback loops in which physical processes affect cyber parts and vice versa,CPS and DTs can endow manufacturing systems with greater efficiency,resilience,and intelligence.CPS and DTs share the same essential concepts of an intensive cyber-physical connection,real-time interaction,organization integration,and in-depth collaboration.However,CPS and DTs are not identical from many perspectives,including their origin,development,engineering practices,cyber-physical mapping,and core elements.In order to highlight the differences and correlation between them,this paper reviews and analyzes CPS and DTs from multiple perspectives.

A Perspective on Smart Process Manufacturing Research Challenges forProcess Systems Engineers

The challenges posed by smart manufacturing for the process industries and for process systems engineering（PSE） researchers are discussed in this article. Much progress has been made in achieving plant- and site-wide optimization, hut benchmarking would give greater confidence. Technical challenges confrontingprocess systems engineers in developing enabling tools and techniques are discussed regarding flexibilityand uncertainty, responsiveness and agility, robustness and security, the prediction of mixture propertiesand function, and new modeling and mathematics paradigms. Exploiting intelligence from big data to driveagility will require tackling new challenges, such as how to ensure the consistency and confidentiality ofdata through long and complex supply chains. Modeling challenges also exist, and involve ensuring that allkey aspects are properly modeled, particularly where health, safety, and environmental concerns requireaccurate predictions of small but critical amounts at specific locations. Environmental concerns will requireus to keep a closer track on all molecular species so that they are optimally used to create sustainablesolutions. Disruptive business models may result, particularly from new personalized products, but that isdifficult to predict.

Quasi-Static and Dynamic Behaviors of Helical Gear System with Manufacturing Errors

Time?varying mesh stiffness(TVMS) and gear errors include short?term and long?term components are the two main internal dynamic excitations for gear transmission. The coupling relationship between the two factors is usually neglected in the traditional quasi-static and dynamic behaviors analysis of gear system. This paper investigates the influence of short?term and long?term components of manufacturing errors on quasi?static and dynamic behaviors of helical gear system considering the coupling relationship between TVMS and gear errors. The TVMS, loaded static transmission error(LSTE) and loaded composite mesh error(LCMS) are determined using an improved loaded tooth contact analysis(LTCA) model. Considering the structure of shaft, as well as the direction of power flow and bearing location, a precise generalized finite element dynamic model of helical gear system is developed, and the dynamic responses of the system are obtained by numerical integration method. The results suggest that lighter loading conditions result in smaller mesh stiffness and stronger vibration, and the corresponding resonance speeds of the system become lower. Long?term components of manufacturing errors lead to the appearance of sideband frequency components in frequency spectrum of dynamic responses. The sideband frequency components are predominant under light loading conditions. With the increase of output torque, the mesh frequency and its harmonics components tend to be enhanced relative to sideband frequency components. This study can provide effective reference for low noise design of gear transmission.

Optimal deadlock avoidance Petri net supervisors for automated manufacturing systems

Deadlock avoidance problems are investigated for automated manufacturing systems with flexible routings. Based on the Petri net models of the systems, this paper proposes, for the first time, the concept of perfect maximal resourcetransition circuits and their saturated states. The concept facilitates the development of system liveness characterization and deadlock avoidance Petri net supervisors. Deadlock is characterized as some perfect maximal resource-transition circuits reaching their saturated states. For a large class of manufacturing systems, which do not contain center resources, the optimal deadlock avoidance Petri net supervisors are presented. For a general manufacturing system, a method is proposed for reducing the system Petri net model so that the reduced model does not contain center resources and, hence, has optimal deadlock avoidance Petri net supervisor. The controlled reduced Petri net model can then be used as the liveness supervisor of the system.

ARCHITECTURE OF MANUFACTURING EXECUTION SYSTEM IN THE EXTENDED ENTERPRISE

The extended enterprise is formed according to the philosophy of dispersednetworked manufacturing. Manufacturing execution system (MES) can close the information gap whichexists between device control system and production information management system. The functions andthe web-based architecture of the MES in the extended enterprise are introduced. Using thecooperating system models of object-oriented and distributed agents and CORBA, all objects keep touniform interface standards and are easily inserted to object request broker. The utilization ofdistributed MES in extended enterprise can adapt fast change of manufacturing environment andresource. It also can improve the independent management capability of manufacturing cell and theenterprise response capability to global economic competition.