Operator control activities in flexible manufacturing systems Part 2

In many modern production systems the human operator is faced with problems when it comes to interacting with the production system using the control system. One reason for this is that the control systems are mainly designed with respect to production, without taking into account how an operator is supposed to interact with it. This article presents a control system where the goal is to increase flexibility and reusability of production equipment and program modules. Apart from this, the control system is also suitable for human operator interaction. To make it easier for an operator to interact with the control system, the operator activities vis-alpha-vis the control system have been divided into so called control levels. One of the six predefined control levels is described more in detail to illustrate how production can be manipulated with the help of a control system at this level. The communication with the control system is accomplished with the help of a graphical tool that interacts with a relational database. The tool has been implemented in Java to make it platform-independent. Some examples of the tool and how it can be used are provided.