EXPERTFLEX: A knowledge-based system for flexible manufacturing system design

Design of a complex manufacturing system consists of the analysis and evaluation of several different configuration alternatives in order to identify the most suitable one(s) in accordance with objectives defined by the design team. It is a continuous process of reducing a large solution space, since the number of dimensions involved is large, into a small subset, preferentially composed of only one configuration; that satisfies the design requirements. This article presents a knowledge-based approach for the flexible manufacturing system (FMS) design problem. A knowledge-based system prototype was developed to verify whether a specific FMS scenario meets the design requirements defined by the design team. Additionally, if a problem is found, the system starts, an analysis-diagnosis-recommendation cycle in order to isolate the possible cause(s) of the design deficiency, as well as to propose changes to improve the performance of the FR IS scenario. At the end. a reduced solution space, just containing verified FMS configurations, will be generated. As a consequence, the efficiency of the FMS design task will be increased. A case study is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the system.