Research On The Key Technologies Of Human-Centered Manufacturing Execution System In Networked Manufacturing

Manufacturing Execution System (MES) is a new type of manufacturing process-oriented information system for shop floor production management and control. It is a bridge between top-level transaction and low-level control system, and is the key for the integration of all enterprise information systems and implementation of advanced manufacturing strategy. Current researches on MES rely excessively on the automation of production management, control and execution, and result in lower applicability to the discrete manufacturing industry characterized by complicated processes, dense manpower and lower level of automation. To solve this problem, the idea of Human-centered Manufacturing Execution System (HcMES) is presented in the dissertation based on the scheme of human-machine synergic manufacturing put forward in the application for the Natural Science Fund Council program "Research on the Shop floor Digital Manufacturing with Human-Machine Synergy based on Wireless Communication" and the idea of "human-centered production". The key technologies of HcMES are studied comprehensively and systematically.The research is sponsored by the Natural Science Fund Council program (50375043), and the main contents are as following:Firstly, requirements and challenges of shop floor production management and control system for discrete manufacturing industry in networked manufacturing are discussed. The idea, meaning and functions of HcMES are expounded. The definition and functional model of HcMES are provided. To meet the needs of reconfigurability, reusability and scalability by agile manufacturing (AM) for production control architecture, order-oriented virtual manufacturing cell (OVMC) and three-layer hybrid control architecture are proposed based on the detailed analysis and summarization of shop floor control architecture and facilities arrangement.Secondly, the software development of HcMES based on multi-agent system (MAS) is studied. A common agent model, functional model and hybrid control architecture based on MAS are described. A dual machine agent mechanism consisting of machine task agent and monitor agent is proposed to reduce communication load and increase response speed. An OVMC based on flexible process route is proposed to reduce the agent interactive scope and increaseefficiency. The language and interaction mode between agents and organization, management of MAS, MAS software architecture of HcMES are discussed.Thirdly, the production scheduling in HcMES is described formally. A three-layer human-computer interactive optimization scheduling method is present based on the analysis of human-computer interactive mode, manually scheduling method in Just-in- time (JIT) production and multi-goal of the scheduling in HcMES. A backward and forward bidding mechanism based on Contract Network Protocol (CNP) in MAS scheduling is proposed, and the bidding process is described in detail including CNP and synthesized scheduling criteria. To cope with the disturbance in production, a dynamic human-computer interactive scheduling method is proposed based on hybrid control architecture and OVMC, and several typical disturbance events and its solution are discussed.By utilizing the independence between the computing steps in Genetic Algorithm (GA), a new task sequencing GA for attaining global optimization scheduling is proposed, which combines the GA and MAS scheduling developed above. Its chromosome coding, operator, fitness function and arithmetic flow are given, and are validated with a test-bed problem.Fourthly, networked information technology supporting HcMES on manufacturing floor is discussed, and a framework based on wireless communication is proposed. To fill the information gap between HcMES and stand-alone manufacturing facilities, a human-centered virtual automation is proposed, and its definition, structure and relations with HcMES are described in detail. Information "push-pull" and intelligent user help technologies are proposed for developing human-computer interactive agent supporting human-machine cooperation based on its function and requirement.At last, on the basis of the CIMS institute experimental workshop and the program of advanced manufacturing R&D initiative funded by the State Development and Planning Commission, an HcMES MAS prototype using COM/DCOM and Windows DNA architecture is designed. Software framework of main agents in HcMES is constructed with UML, and examples for validating the key technologies proposed in the dissertation are provided.