Virtual job shop approach based on reconfigurable machines

The manufacturing companies need to rapid response to the market changes (product fluctuations, mix changes, etc.) in order to stay competitive. Reconfigurable machines allow to support the development of reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMS). Reconfigurable machines are able to rapid change of hardware and software components in order to adjust the production capacity and adapt to new products. The performance measures of RMSs depend strongly by the design and control approaches used. This paper proposes a control policy to reconfigure machines in order to obtain a virtual job shop, because the machines of the job shop can be dispersed in the manufacturing system. A simulation environment has been developed in order to test the proposed methodology in different dynamic conditions: production fluctuations, mix change and the dynamicity level of the environment. The simulation results show the benefits of the proposed approach in a very dynamic environment.