Virtual factory approach for implementation of holonic control in industrial applications: A case study in die-casting industry

Abstract

Design and implementation of holonic manufacturing control systems for the real industrial applications require risky, careful decisions to ensure that the manufacturing system will successfully satisfy the demands of an ever-changing market. This paper suggests a virtual reality (VR)-based methodology for enhancing the design and implementation process of holonic control systems in manufacturing practice. The major focus has been given to the implementation of holonic control into the small to medium size manufacturing enterprises (SMEs). The 'virtual holonic factory' concept has been introduced, as a test bed for integration of a holonic control into a virtual factory, i.e. three-dimensional VR model of a factory in order to visually realize the effects of holonic control, when implemented to a real manufacturing system. A case study has been carried out in a medium size die-casting manufacturing plant. Through the virtual factory, a holonic control architecture for flow-line manufacturing system has been implemented for dynamic scheduling of machines in the medium size factory in order to achieve robustness necessary to handle the disturbances. The system performance and key attributes of the holonic control, such as re-configurability and robustness, have been tested and validated by using VR technology and analysis results have been presented. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.