A study on real-time scheduling for autonomous distributed manufacturing systems

A real-time scheduling method considering human operators is proposed to select suitable combinations of human operators, manufacturing equipment and jobs for autonomous distributed manufacturing systems. The proposed scheduling method consists of three steps. In the first step, the human operators select their favorite manufacturing processes which they will carry out in the next time period, based on their preferences. In the second step, the machine tools and the jobs select suitable combinations for the next machining processes. In the third step, the automated guided vehicles and the jobs select suitable combinations for the next transportation processes.