Interactivity in Production Control Simulation

Summary

Intermittent production systems work practically always under conditions of uncertainty. In the whole range of the system behaviour (from the ideal to the catastrophic one), the behaviour of a typical production system can be specified as a mutable or disturbant.

One of the basic features of such a behaviour is that the system achieves another than expected or desirable goal state, without any possibility of some corrective action in the real time. Moreover, it is not only uncertainty, but also the intermittent structure of the production process itself that leads to this type of the behaviour.

A production process and control simulation based on a heuristic model respecting the real, initial state of the production system can reveal those situations, in which the system tends to leave its presumed goal behaviour. Thus, on the one hand, the reality affects the model, which is natural and necessary. On the other hand, the simulation model with its dynamic features and prediction ability can affect the real system directly and in advance, in order to minimize the possible deviation from its desirable function in the future.

Various measures and actions modifying the system structure or functions usually require not only some lead-time, but also some human supported information.

Therefore, a computer-oriented or initiated interactive approach to the process simulation can help to solve this problem of mutual relationship between the reality and the model in the field of computer aided production control systems. The interaction is based on a forward, into the future moving time distance between the decision maker and the computer model and on some combination of the actual and simulated decisions.