Production control strategy inspired by neuroendocrine regulation

Abstract

Due to the international business competition of modern manufacturing enterprises, production systems are forced to quickly respond to the emergence of changing conditions. Production control has become more challenging as production systems adapt to frequent demand variation. The neuroendocrine system is a perfect system which plays an important role in controlling and modulating the adaptive behavior of organic cells under stimulus using hormone-regulation principles. Inherited from the hormone-regulation principle, an adaptive control model of production system integrated with a backlog controller and a work-in-progress controller is presented to reduce backlog variation and keep a defined work-in-progress level. The simulation results show that the presented control model is more responsive and robust against demand disturbances such as rush orders in production system.