Flexible Manufacturing System Simulation Using Sentinel - an Active Object Oriented Database Management System

Modelling applications for controlling Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS) is a complex process which involves development of efficient programs, easy user interfaces, and huge passive databases. The amount of data flow in an FMS for any medium size industry is high and as a result applications have to be written in a way that they can manage the data efficiently. Currently many of the shop floor control systems are based on passive databases. These applications have to poll the passive databases and take actions according to the conditions being satisfied. It has been shown that dynamic event based processes are not well supported by passive Database Management Systems (DBMS). Sentinel is an Active Object-Oriented Data Base Management System, developed for the purpose of addressing condition monitoring of dynamic events. It is readily applicable for simulating a broad spectrum of areas ranging from CIM, process control to stock market monitoring and investment decisions. This study deals with development of an event based shop floor control application on Sentinel. A simulated manufacturing environment is considered for evaluating the suitability of Sentinel for a FMS environment. The application considers varied requirements of FMS to determine what additional features are needed for the Sentinel.