PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT OF MANUFACTURING SYSTEM NETWORKS

Performance management of communication networks is critical for speed , reliability, and flexibility of information exchange between differe nt components, subsystems, and sectors (e.g., factory, engineering des ign, and administration) of production process organizations in the en vironment of computer integrated manufacturing (CIM). Essential to thi s distributed total manufacturing system is the integrated communicati ons network over which the information leading to process interactions and plant management and control is exchanged. Such a network must be capable of handling heterogeneous traffic resulting from intermachine communications at the factory floor, CAD drawings, design specificati ons, and administrative information. The objective is to improve the e fficiency in handling various types of messages, e.g., control signals , sensor data, and production orders, by on-line adjustment of the par ameters of the network protocol. This paper presents a conceptual desi gn, development, and implementation of a network performance managemen t scheme for CIM applications including flexible manufacturing. The pe rformance management algorithm is formulated using the concepts of: (1 ) Perturbation analysis of discrete event dynamic systems; (2) stochas tic approximation; and (3) learning automata. The proposed concept for performance management can also serve as a general framework to assis t design, operation, and management of flexible manufacturing systems. The performance management procedure has been tested via emulation on a network test bed that is based on the manufacturing automation prot ocol (MAP) which has been widely used for CIM networking. The conceptu al design presented in this paper offers a step forward to bridging th e gap between management standards and users' demands for efficient ne twork operations since most standards such as ISO and IEEE address onl y the architecture, services, and interfaces for network management.