Abstract
In modern factories, production equipment maintenance represents a significant and important task to ensure that plant facilities continue to function properly. On the other hand, intelligent production dispatching generates maximal outputs for changing production demands. In this research, a system architecture, called Integrated Intelligent Equipment Maintenance and Production Dispatching (IEMPD) building on the JAVA Expert System Shell (JESS), is designed and developed to support collaborative maintenance, remote equipment diagnosis, job dispatching, and production simulation/verification. The IEMPD system is applied for dynamic shop floor equipment maintenance and production control. In the past, trouble shooting analyses were based on the experiences and skills of equipment engineers. The IEMPD platform allows knowledge engineers to construct, manage and maintain rules easily and flexibly to satisfy ever-changing collaborative maintenance and production requirements. Through the rule base, maintenance knowledge and experiences can be created, accumulated, shared and reused. Thus, IEMPD can rapidly help maintenance engineers identify the faults and suggest solutions. Further more, IEMPD can assist production engineers plan dispatched jobs based on the orders and the equipment status. This research uses a machining flexible manufacturing system (FMS) as the case study to demonstrate the IEMPD capability in supporting integrated intelligent maintenance and production.