Cooperative control in production and logistics

Abstract

This is a milestone paper of the Coordinating Committee on Manufacturing and Logistics Systems (CC5) of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC).Classical applications of control engineering and information and communication technology (ICT) in production and logistics are often done in a rigid, centralized and hierarchical way. These inflexible approaches are typically not able to cope with the complexities of the manufacturing environment, such as the instabilities, uncertainties and abrupt changes caused by internal and external disturbances, or a large number and variety of interacting, interdependent elements. A paradigm shift, e.g., novel organizing principles and methods, is needed for supporting the interoperability of dynamic alliances of agile and networked systems. Several solution proposals argue that the future of manufacturing and logistics lies in network-like, dynamic, open and reconfigurable systems of cooperative autonomous entities.The paper overviews various distributed approaches and technologies of control engineering and ICT that can support the realization of cooperative structures from the resource level to the level of networked enterprises. Standard results as well as recent advances from control theory, through cooperative game theory, distributed machine learning to holonic systems, cooperative enterprise modelling, system integration, and autonomous logistics processes are surveyed. A special emphasis is put on the theoretical developments and industrial applications of Robustly Feasible Model Predictive Control (RFMPC). Two case studies are also discussed: i) a holonic, PROSA-based approach to generate short-term forecasts for an additive manufacturing system by means of a delegate multi-agent system (D-MAS); and ii) an application of distributed RFMPC to a drinking water distribution system.

Challenges for the cyber-physical manufacturing enterprises of the future

“…The role of research in the field is to create upstream conditions for technological breakthroughs, so that enterprise investment is not merely pulled by the incremental evolution of information technology (IT) (Monostori, et al 2015). Recent literature extensively dealt with smart manufacturing trends in industry of future (Davis et al 2015, Moghaddam and Nof 2017, (Thoben et al, 2017, Kusiak 2018.…”

The Use of Process Thinking in the Industrial Practice – Preliminary Survey

“…It is necessary to develop effective system of management and control, which is able to detect process changes as soon as possible, so corrective measures can be established before a large amount of defective parts are manufactured [8] "optimum" [9]. There is used also so called holistic approach, besides known methods, to solve complex problems [10].…”

“…The main emphasis is put on global (comprehensive) approach to solve problems throughout the whole process (see e.g. [9]).…”

Knowledge engineering for enterprise integration, interoperability and networking: Theory and applications

“…As enterprises adapt at a rapid pace, these inflexible approaches do not work with the agile manufacturing environment of today. Distributed approaches and technologies of control engineering and information and communication technology (ICT) to enable operational structures at the individual resource level to cooperate even at the inter-and intra-enterprises are presented in [5]. As advances in industrial control continue, the networking of the enterprise must include the production and logistics aspects and facilitate the interoperability of the enterprise.…”