Performance of nonlinear distributed arrival time controllers in part-driven heterarchical manufacturing systems

Earlier work has shown that distributed arrival time controllers in part-driven heterarchical manufacturing systems can provide nearly optimal variance in due-date deviation by using linear integral controllers. In this paper five nonlinear arrival time controllers are proposed and scheduling performance of these controllers is experimentally investigated using numerical simulation. Performance measures used include absolute due-date deviation, variance of due-date deviation, mean and variance of tardiness, and, mean and variance of completion time. Results indicate that the due-date performance of arrival time controllers is fairly robust to changes in controller gain. Comparison with machine-driven dispatch rules indicate that the arrival time controllers have better due-date based performance and that setting due-date of arrival time controllers to zero can increase throughput.