Comparison of rule-based and optimization-based control of resource allocation on a production line

The effect of disturbances to task execution in manufacturing cells can be minimized by control. A rule-based and an optimization-based controller is developed for a production-line at Odense Steel Shipyard and implemented in a computer-based simulation model. The differences in performance between the two controllers is found in a two-level five factor factorial experiment. The simulations show that on average the optimization-based controller is 2-5% better than the rule-based controller. It is also shown that the rule-based controller is generally more sensitive to changes in parameters on the production-line.