Interconnected Manufacturing Systems

This book provides an overview of the processes in discrete-event manufacturing systems, and emphasizes concepts relating to the interconnection of the wide range of activities involved. It highlights, particularly, the hierarchical structural properties of interconnection and the existence of forward (command) and reverse (monitoring) flows of information and activities which are encountered in most physical, biological and socio-economic systems. The work thus focuses on concepts and generic models and does not attempt to provide a direct solution to the many complex problems encountered in advanced manufacturing systems. It distills and reformulates material from the vast collection of other published work, and extends this to form a systems view of the complex large scale processes involved in manufacturing. In this way, it attempts to summarize briefly the salient features of automated manufacturing processes and to make them readily accessible to the reader requiring an overview of current developments.