An improved event-triggered predictive control for capacity adjustment in reconfigurable job-shops

In order to regulate work in process (WIP) to the desired value in the job shop production control system, capacity adjustment as an effective and efficient measure, which is typically achieved by flexible staffs and working time. In this paper, instead of traditional labour-oriented approaches, we consider a machinery-based capacity adjustment via reconfigurable machine tools (RMTs) to compensate for unpredictable events. To this end, we employ model predictive control (MPC) in combination with genetic algorithm (GA) to explicitly consider complex reconfiguration strategies and address the related integer assignment optimisation problems. To further reduce energy consumption and avoid frequent and unnecessary reconfigurations while keeping a certain level of performance, we adopt an event-triggered MPC scheme with the proposed ‘Double-layer event-triggering conditions’. Through extensively illustrated simulations, we demonstrate the effectiveness and plug-and-play availability of the proposed method for a six-workstation four-product job shop system and compare it to a state-of-the-art method.