Simulation Modeling of Control Strategies in Flexible Manufacturing System

A Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) is designed to combine high productivity and production flexibility. But the controlling of an FMS requires high skills. Furthermore, the decisions at this stage have to be made very carefully in order to ensure that the manufacturing system will successfully satisfy the demands of an ever-changing market. Discrete-event simulation has been widely used to control such complex system. On the other hand, simulation is more and more used for decision making and evaluate control strategies. In this paper, we propose a logic simulation model which corresponds to the modeling of the computer control system. This paper also describes the various control strategies in an FMS. In the last some of the useful simulation techniques along with some simulation packages have been addressed at the end of the paper and these techniques/software will be useful for the modeling and decision making of FMS.