Self-Organizing Material Flow Control using Smart Products: An Assessment by Simulation

Material Flow Control (MFC) mechanisms control the movement of jobs through a set stationery capacity resources on shop floor. Although objective MFC is item-centric, i.e. to flow individual jobs, most existing are resource-centric, focus managing resources. While this was justified by technical constraints real-time information feedback, advances in technology allow for new designs. In particular, smart products cognizant their local context and can communicate with one another Internet Things, thereby enabling self-organized jobs. Despite potential application including multi-agent systems scheduling holonic control, continue hierarchical, centralized data structures. response, study develops simple item-centric mechanism uses simulation proof feasibility control.