Deadlock avoidance for manufacturing systems with partially ordered process plans

• Published in: Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation Vol. 4; pp. 3383 - 3388 vol.4
• Main Authors: Sulistyono, W., Lawley, M.A.
• Format: Conference Proceeding Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2000
• Subjects: Control systems; Flexible manufacturing systems; Industrial engineering; Manufacturing automation; Manufacturing systems; Resource management; Routing; Supervisory control; System performance; System recovery
• ISBN: 9780780358867; 0780358864
• ISSN: 1050-4729; 2577-087X
• DOI: 10.1109/ROBOT.2000.845240

Deadlock avoidance policies guarantee deadlock-free resource allocation to concurrent competing processes in flexible manufacturing systems. Most deadlock avoidance work in manufacturing deals with systems where each part requires a fired sequence of operations. In contrast, this paper deals with those systems that support sequencing flexibility, that is, the operations required by the part are partially ordered. In this setting, the order in which operations are performed is not predetermined, but becomes a real-time decision. Specifically, the paper characterizes the deadlock detection and avoidance problems for these systems, presents a sub-optimal deadlock avoidance approach, and addresses two relevant special structures on the partial orders for which optimal deadlock avoidance is of polynomial complexity.