Method to Control Manufacturing Cell by Driving Simulation Model

Abstract

In this paper, a method to Control a Manufacturing Cell by Driving Simulation Models (CMC-DSM) is proposed. The purposes of CMC-DSM is not only to directly operate the manufacturing cell while controlling and monitoring the manufacturing cell based on a simulation model in the manufacturing system execution phase, but also to support the manufacturing engineering processes based on the simulation model. In the manufacturing engineering processes, the simulation model is mixed and synchronized with real equipment and management applications in the case where parts of equipment and manufacturing management applications are not provided in the manufacturing cell. In the manufacturing system execution phase, when the simulation model acts in response to manufacturing system behaviors, the manufacturing system is controlled by synchronizing the simulation model behaviors. In this paper, the Environment required to Control a Manufacturing Cell by Driving Simulation Models (E-CMC-DSM) is proposed. The necessary functions for E-CMC-DSM are defined and developed. E-CMC-DSM consists of a simulator developed to drive simulation models (EMU), a soft-wiring system developed in this study, and a semi-standard industrial network middleware. The validation of ECMC-DSM was carried out through a case study.