Cooperation among flexible manufacturing systems

Integration of an Automated Manufacturing System is now recognized as one of the key issues for improving productivity. The separation of a large complex system into smaller subsystems that operate individually contributes to an efficient integration and control of the entire system. However, the overall performance of the system may be reduced, if each sub-system operates independently and if no cooperation between the subsystems´ resources exists. This paper investigates how the subsystems should cooperate to improve system performance.