Simulation of intelligent hierarchical flexible manufacturing: batch job routing in operation overlapping

We present an approach to embedding expert systems within an object-oriented simulation environment that facilitates the creation of classes of expert system model elements that can be interfaced with other model components. Previous work has shown how distributed expert systems can be defined as modular components of simulations models. This article illustrates their usefulness in fractal architectures for flexible manufacturing, as proposed in the literature. Alternate structures (reconfigured structures) of a proposed hierarchical factory architecture can be generated through the recursive pruning process. Such rapid prototyping should greatly enhance the ability to investigate alternative architectural solutions to manufacturing problems in a timely manner