Fouzia Ounnar

Pull control for job shop: holonic manufacturing system approach using multicriteria decision-making

Faced with international competition, industrial production increasingly requires implementation conditions which, in some cases, lead to seek new techniques for workshop control. This is the case when it is asked to establish Just in Time management in a Job Shop having the characteristics of working with small series. A new approach for the organization of the ‘control’ function in such a context is presented here. This approach relies on the use of the holonic paradigm on an isoarchic architecture and on a decision-making capacity based on a multicriteria analysis. The various concepts of this approach are addressed first. Then, the multicriteria decision mechanisms that are used are detailed, as well as the implementation and instrumentation phases. The first results that were obtained are presented.

PROSIS: An isoarchic structure for HMS control

This paper presents a holonic and isoarchic approach to the Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) control. This approach is based on a flat holonic form, where each holon is a model for each entity of the FMS, with a unifying level of communication between holons. After description of this model, called PROSIS, the interaction protocol and decision rules are presented. The objective is to increase the FMS productivity and flexibility, particularly on responsiveness aspects. This responsiveness is achieved through decentralized generation of the production tasks. The reactive behaviour of the FMS control is illustrated by the example of a flexible turning cell, upon occurrence of a failure or of an urgent batch order, and the resulting Gantt charts are shown.

Consideration of machine breakdown in the control of flexible production systems

Control of operational production systems requires a reaction to disturbances. In this paper, the authors present a Petri net model describing a decision-making mechanism induced by the breakdown of a machine. The aim of such a proposal is to reassign the operations to the workshops resources. A decision-making aid methodology is essential to consider the disturbances according to several criteria. Therefore, the authors propose a Petri net model composed of Deterministic and Stochastic Petri nets (DSPN) and Object Petri nets (OPN). The decision-making process is based on the introduced concept of ‘potential’ associated with each machine. This potential is evaluated by means of several criteria to take the ‘right’ decision. In this study, the three following criteria are retained: Time, Cost, and machine reliability. A state of the art survey about the multicriteria decision aid methods has led to the choice of a method called AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process). The authors thus present a multicriteria algorithm, based on the AHP method, developed for the reassignment of the operations that are blocked following a machine breakdown. The reassignment of the blocked operation is carried out on the machine providing ‘the best’ compromise between the three criteria.

Service Oriented Architecture for Holonic Isoarchic and Multicriteria Control

Faced with the limitations of methods fully or partially centralized for decision-making in workshop control, the PROSIS (Product, Resource, Order, Simulation, Isoarchic System) model is proposed; this model is based on the holonic paradigm and operates according to an isoarchic architecture that allows these holonic entities to use ambient services. All holonic entities contribute to the decision-making mechanism. Each holonic entity can be considered as the combination of an M_holon composed with the physical part of Holon, with an I_holon, adding to it intelligence and decision-making abilities. Each I_holon is synchronized with its M_holon via infotronic technology of RFID type. Furthermore, it supports the status information of the Holon and access to services allowing it to take decisions. The I_holon is hosted by an Ambient Control Entity (ACE) network, located, according to SOA, close to each resource. The ACEs provide to the Holons the ad hoc services they need.

Future Industrial Systems: Best Practices of the Intelligent Manufacturing and Services Systems (IMS2) French Research Group

Development of future industry has become an active research area in the recent years. A structured national workgroup, called IMS2, has emerged in France over the last decade. The aim of this paper is, regarding four highlighted general research topics (namely agility, new technologies, sustainability, and industrial dissemination), to synthetize the general research works on intelligent manufacturing and to demonstrate the principal contributions developed within the framework of this national workgroup. After a critical evaluation of the proposed approaches toward alternative solutions, this paper suggests a 2030 roadmap for the workgroup.

AHP/ANP a Decision Making Service in PROSIS Model

An approach that relies on the use of the holonic paradigm, on an isoarchic architecture and on a decision-making capacity based on a multicriteria analysis is presented. The various concepts of this approach are addressed first. Then, the multicriteria decision methods based on AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) and its generalization ANP (Analytic Network Process) are detailed, as well as the implementation phases. The first obtained results on a case study are presented.

Study of an intelligent and multicriteria scheduling service, using academic benchmarks

The implementation of new production organisation methods becomes essential in the context of the evolution of companies. These methods include scheduling, which, in this context, is generally based on multiple criteria. Multicriteria optimisation methods are needed to search all optimal solutions and multicriteria decision-making methods are needed to choose the best compromise between potential solutions. The objective here is to evaluate the performance of a multicriteria decision-making method used to establish a real-time scheduling, in the holonic, isoarchic and multicriteria model, named the Product, Resource, Order, Simulation, Isoarchic System (PROSIS), through academic benchmarks. After presenting the existing intelligent control based on an intelligent scheduling service, the choice of the multicriteria aid method named the analytic hierarchy process is justified. Following this, the implementation of the multicriteria scheduling service in PROSIS is described. Finally, the benchmarks allowing to study the performance of the multicriteria scheduling are presented before analysing the results.

Wireless Holon Network for job shop isoarchic control

This paper highlights that new forms of decisional intelligence could be deployed in production system control.Wireless Holon Network is presented, combining holonic and isoarchic control with wireless sensor network technology.Behavior and decision making models of the various holons types are described through Discrete EVent System specification formalism.An application to the internal logistics of a job shop is presented.A discussion on organizational implications of the operationalization of the proposed control is conducted. This work introduces a novel perspective in the field of Holonic Manufacturing Systems, based on wireless intelligent control of production systems. The presented control approach uses isoarchic control architecture and considers wireless sensor network technology as support for its implementation. A wireless holon network (WHN) is thus proposed. WHN is an instance of CPPS (Cyber-physical production systems). This allows decision-making capacities to each physical entity of the production system constituting a set of holons. These holons are connected entities of three types (Product, Resource or Order), that interact to bring out a collective intelligence. The formal models of the various holons are described as well as their exploitation via the wireless sensor network technology. An application to the internal logistics of a job shop is presented. A discussion focuses on organizational changes resulting from the exploitation of a WHN to highlight organizational implications of the operationalization of the proposed approach.

Internal logistics as a service in a holonic and isoarchic control model

PROSIS is a holonic and isoarchic control model for manufacturing systems. This paper introduces the subsystem that, in PROSIS, deals with the internal logistics of a manufacturing system. The model of this subsystem will be described, then its implementation will be presented.

Isoarchic and Multi-criteria Control of Supply Chain Network

Supply chains and more particularly supply chain networks are more and more subjected to extreme dynamic operations, where it is asked that each actor has more flexibility and reactivity on the one hand and a specialization bringing more productivity on the other hand. Companies try to achieve the common goal of satisfying customers’ needs through partnership. Negotiation between partners is thus required involving each partner management and production organization. This situation makes it difficult to obtain the best response with respect to the need of each customer. For that, a new approach is proposed for customer–supplier relationship control, in which the partnership is considered in the context of an association of potential suppliers within a network: an isoarchic control model for a supply chain network based on a holonic architecture. The decision-making mechanism is produced thanks to the properties of a decision-making center, called autonomous control entity, associated to each actor of the logistic network, which makes it possible to quantify a multi-criteria evaluation. An implementation of the simulation of such a system is done via a distributed simulation environment high-level architecture). A case study is presented.