TY - JOUR
T1 - The effect of responsiveness of the control-decision system to the performance of FMS
AU - Chan, Felix T.S.
AU - Bhagwat, Rajat
AU - Chan, Hing Kai
N1 - Funding Information:
The work described in this paper was fully supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project No. PolyU 510311). The authors also would like to thank The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Research Committee for financial and technical support. The authors also thank the editor and the reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions that have led to the substantial improvement of the paper.
PY - 2014/6
Y1 - 2014/6
N2 - In Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS), decision-making process is one of the key aspects for its performance enhancement, particularly for shop-floor control, where operation managers need to make a large number of control decisions. A term called 'response-time' in decision-making process has been defined in this study, which refers to a lead time in decision-making and its implementation. This paper contributes a methodology for decision-maker to study the decision-making process and identify a suitable decision-making approach, while considering critical factors such as decision automation levels, routing flexibility levels, and control strategies. Considering the complexity in modelling an FMS with routing flexibility levels, control strategies (sequencing and dispatching rules), and decision-making process with information system, computer simulation modelling has been employed to study the makespan performance. The results show that decision-making process with response-time for FMS control performs as good as with the real-time control when routing flexibility level is low. Furthermore, under some specific situations, it even outperforms the real-time control. This research gives insight to decision-maker to identify whether a decision system with response-time will be more suitable and economically justified, or real-time decision-making system is more appropriate.
AB - In Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS), decision-making process is one of the key aspects for its performance enhancement, particularly for shop-floor control, where operation managers need to make a large number of control decisions. A term called 'response-time' in decision-making process has been defined in this study, which refers to a lead time in decision-making and its implementation. This paper contributes a methodology for decision-maker to study the decision-making process and identify a suitable decision-making approach, while considering critical factors such as decision automation levels, routing flexibility levels, and control strategies. Considering the complexity in modelling an FMS with routing flexibility levels, control strategies (sequencing and dispatching rules), and decision-making process with information system, computer simulation modelling has been employed to study the makespan performance. The results show that decision-making process with response-time for FMS control performs as good as with the real-time control when routing flexibility level is low. Furthermore, under some specific situations, it even outperforms the real-time control. This research gives insight to decision-maker to identify whether a decision system with response-time will be more suitable and economically justified, or real-time decision-making system is more appropriate.
KW - Control strategy
KW - Decision-making process
KW - FMS
KW - Response-time
KW - Routing flexibility
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84897471109&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.cie.2014.03.003
DO - 10.1016/j.cie.2014.03.003
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84897471109
SN - 0360-8352
VL - 72
SP - 32
EP - 42
JO - Computers and Industrial Engineering
JF - Computers and Industrial Engineering
IS - 1
ER -