Decision making in supervisory control of a flexible manufacturing system

Abstract

An evaluation is made of the decision processes of humans in a flexible manufacturing system (FMS) environment. GT-FMS, a real-time simulator of an FMS, was implemented with data from an actual FMS installation. An experiment was conducted in which humans interacted with the control system of GT-FMS at an aggregate level. The humans described each of their control actions, and their decision processes were evaluated by mapping these descriptions onto a standard model of human decision-making. The experimental results support making humans an integral part of the FMS control process, since an intricate knowledge of the system state and system sensitivity were crucial to human decision-making in GT-FMS. Humans in this experiment used detailed system status information, rather than system performance history, as the basis of their control decisions and were inconsistent in defining their goals.<>