Integration of control and information systems by open autonomous decentralized system architecture and its application for distributed manufacturing system

Abstract

Under severe economic situations, the computer systems of companies have to produce new products or supply new services flexibly in order to meet changing customers' demands. To realize a flexible computer system, the system should be able to expand and modify its software as well as its hardware rapidly. Moreover, companies have recently been tackling business process re-engineering (BPR) to share various kinds of information among different departments, for quick response to consumers' needs and cost reduction. An open ADS (autonomous decentralized system) architecture, which is a new control and information system architecture, is proposed to fulfil the flexibility of such a system. This paper introduces a practical manufacturing system realized on this platform. This system is developed based on the Hi-Cell concept that is defined as an assembly of autonomies called HIC (Homogeneous max Intelligent Cells). In this system, techniques for resumption have been applied and evidence for their effectiveness has been presented.