Autonomic Manufacturing Solutions

The centralized, hardwired designs of traditional production networks and control system software impose limits on successfully dealing with unpredictability. Whitestein Technologies’ offering introduces autonomy with superior flexibility and adaptivity into the domain and thus drives the automatization and optimization of manufacturing processes further.

Efforts to increase the adaptive capabilities of networked manufacturing equipment to dynamically handle changing demands in complex environments – be it as part of an assembly line or a traffic management system – are a pivotal trend.

However, the centralized, 'hardwired' approach of designing software for such systems imposes limits on their tolerance for unpredictability and their ability to react timely and accurately to constantly changing requirements. It also makes it an increasingly complex task for humans to administrate and optimize the performance of such systems.

Whitestein Technologies' innovations in agent-based autonomic computing offer a novel approach to the operation of production networks and machines. Their unique value is to instill self-managing properties into modular systems of equipment. These properties allow every component of a production network or machine to control and improve its behavior in coordination with other components and in accordance with given (but often dynamic) requirements. This in turn minimizes the complexity of designing and operating a set-up that as a whole optimizes the performance of equipment in mutable, emerging application scenarios.

• LS/APN – Living Systems Adaptive Production Networks: our Manufacturing Execution System (MES) solution provides monitoring and optimization of distributed production processes according to an adaptable economic model. (In development.)
• LS/AMC – Living Systems Autonomic Machine Control is geared at equipment vendors and their customers. LS/AMC taps the full potential of modular production lines for significant benefits: increased machine setup flexibility, higher reaction speeds to customer and order requirements, reduced maintenance efforts, and improved logging and simulation capabilities.