Methodology for dynamic scheduling and control in biological manufacturing systems

Biological manufacturing is an emerging concept that aims to apply the structures and behaviour of natural organisms to manufacturing organisations in order to transfer the inherited flexibility and adaptability of life forms to industrial operations. In this article, a biologically inspired dynamic decentralised scheduling and control methodology based on continuous communication between machines and transporters is proposed. The system aims to satisfy the performance objectives in a real-time scheduling environment without any centralised control. No advanced scheduling takes place and the machine for each processing stage is selected only after the previous stage has been completed. Three types of dynamic scheduling are identified and the operational procedure is developed. The proposed scheduling approaches differ in terms of flexibility of the established processing and transportation contracts, which influences the system's ability to respond to disturbances. Automatic guided vehicles are used to transport products between the machines along a pre-defined network of paths that allow easy access to all stations. The proposed methodology together with a deadlock avoidance mechanism is modelled and simulated using discrete event simulation software. The results indicate that the methodology is feasible and can react to changes in the environment.