Conceptual design of a shop floor control information system

This paper presents a conceptual model for guiding the integrated design and implementation of a shop floor control information system SFCIS in manufacturing. Issues discussed include control decisions, information flow, and communication message passing, but not the content of specific shop floor databases. A bidding system is assumed for control of job dispatching and routeing. Information flow is described using IDEF0. Through an object-oriented O-O approach, the IDEF0 description is extended to a message passing timing diagram, similar to the manufacturing message specification MMS, to represent the communication. Also included is an example to illustrate the proposed SFCIS development procedure.