Lab-scale Models of Manufacturing Systems for Testing Real-time Simulation and Production Control Technologies

In the last years, the increase of data availability together with enhanced computation capabilities empowered researchers to conceive production planning and control methods with real-time inputs. Literature is rich with techniques for using simulation to take production planning and control decisions online. However, it is generally impractical to test these approaches on real systems, and experiments on digital instances are limited because they do not capture the physical aspects. This work proposes to test Real-time Simulation approaches using lab-scale models of manufacturing systems and a software architecture aligned with industrial standards. Such models allow to reproduce material flows and the production control logic of real factory environments. By exploiting this setting to test new approaches and tools, it is possible to increase their own achievable Technology Readiness Level (TRL). The laboratory has been used to set a real-time rescheduling problem on a Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) model. The test involves simulation models aligned with the current system state for the online identification and implementation of a production scheduling rule that decreases the expected makespan. The results testify that the proposed lab-scale models can be used successfully to test production planning and control approaches.