A framework for building intelligent manufacturing systems

The paper describes a systematic approach to design and development of software for intelligent manufacturing systems. The approach is based on a multilevel, general object oriented model of intelligent systems. Current methods and software design and development tools for intelligent manufacturing systems either stress particular components of intelligence (e.g., high level domain expertise, or learning capabilities, or fuzziness of decisions), or their domain dependence (e.g., monitoring and control systems, or CAPP systems). It is usually difficult to make extensions of such methods and tools, nor is it easy to reuse their components in developing intelligent manufacturing systems. Considerable efforts are being dedicated to the development of interoperable software components, distributed object environments, and flexible and scalable applications to overcome some of these problems. The approach described in the paper starts with a well founded software engineering principle, making clear distinction between generic, low level intelligent software components, and domain-dependent, high level components of an intelligent manufacturing system. It is extensible and adjustable. It also suggests some steps toward design of future software development tools for intelligent manufacturing systems. Several intelligent systems have been developed using the approach. One of these systems, in the cement manufacturing domain, is briefly overviewed, illustrating how the approach is used in practice. Finally, some informal discussion on the performance and complexity of the approach is presented.