Dynamic modelling of reconfigurable manufacturing planning and control systems using supervisory control

This research is concerned with studying the dynamic performance of reconfigurable Manufacturing Planning and Control (MPC) systems. Such goal requires two main tasks. The first task is to develop a dynamic MPC system model that has the ability to reconfigure to different MPC policies. The second task is to design a supervisory control unit that has as input the high level strategic market decisions and constraints together with a feedback of the current manufacturing system state and then select the optimal suitable operation mode or policy at these conditions. This paper addresses the first task of the proposed research and presents and analyses a dynamic reconfigurable MPC model. The response of the developed model to sudden demand changes under different parameters settings is analysed. In addition, the stability limits of the system are also studied. The results give a better understanding of the dynamics of reconfigurable MPC systems and the different trade-off decisions required when selecting an MPC policy and the limits for parameters settings. These results represent the first step towards designing the supervisory control unit which will be responsible for managing the reconfiguration of the whole system.