Information organization in flexible automation systems

Abstract Felxible Automation Systems ( FAS ) are comprised of three major sybsystems: the workstations, material handling, and computer control. Much effort and research have been devoted to the first two and to system control, the loading and scheduling of the system. Little effort has been expended, however, on the information requirements of FASS , although their control is information intensive. Every move of every axis of every device must be coordinated, monitored, and controlled. Information must be stored and transmitted to the needed device at the appropriate time. The status of the system must be continuously surveyed, updated, and verified. Hierarchical systems have been suggested for the control of FMSS , and this has implications for their structure, which in turn influences computing and communication requirements, system performance, reliability, and failure recovery. This paper discusses storage and data flow requirements as a function of the system's manufacturing mission. Two control architectures, centralized and two-level distributed, are considered, and the computing, storage, and communications requirements calculated for each. Analysis of results indicates that there is a break-even point between centralized and decentralized systems that is a function of the manufacturing mission but independent of FAS size and operating environment.