17-03-2014, 06:23 PM
This paper describes SCORE, a prototype dynamic scheduling system developed for a
high-volume manufacturing plant. The test case environment is characteiized by the
complexity and size of the process structure, the high speed of the production flows, and
the frequency of unexpected events that disturb the production process. The system has
been developed with capabilities for: (a) generating the schedules of resources allocations
of the shop-floor; (b) generating the schedule of the monitoring activities to be performed
by the shop-floor controllers; © monitoring the events occurring on the shop-floor,
anticipating their impact on the manufacturing process; (d) performing corrective actions
to the resource schedules whenever the production is jeopardized by the occurrence of
unexpected events, to eliminate or reduce any production losses. The system performs a
close-loop interaction with the network of shop-floor-controllers and work-center
processors. The architectural approach adopted enables the integration and cooperation
of multiple problem-solving techniques under the coordination of an interrupt-driven
system supervisor. To meet the demand for rapid task execution times, a capability of
effective computational resource allocation has been built inside the system supervisor
and the system tasks.