Control of productive systems with functional flexibility level

ABSTRACT The evolution of tool-machines allowed the aggregation of a larger group of functionalities into these machines that are now named multifunctional machine-tools (MMTs). However, from the viewpoint of productive process there is a limitation of the conventional control solution, i.e., when the productive systems are composed of several MMTs: its functional flexibility is considered only during scheduling, but during the process execution, each MMT is viewed as a traditional machine because the procedure for attribution of functionalities is encapsulated and the multi-functionalities are not explored during the resources allocation. Thus, a new control approach for productive process is proposed here to allocate the resources considering the functional flexibility of MMTs.