ABSTRACT
Intelligent manufacturing is the process that utilizes intelligent control in order to accomplish its goal. It possesses several degrees of autonomy, by demonstrating (machine) intelligence to make crucial decisions during the process. Such decisions involve scheduling, prioritization, machine selection, product flow optimization, etc., in order to expedite production and improve profitability. Intelligent control, has been defined as the combination of disciplines of artificial intelligence, operations research and control system theory, in order to perform tasks with minimal interaction with a human operator. The intelligent control system is composed of three levels in decreasing order of intelligence and increasing order of precision as stipulated by the principle of increasing precision with decreasing intelligence. However, with better understanding of the basics, new methodologies are proposed to analytically implement the various functions, without significantly changing the models at each level.
