Evolution of a Flexible Manufacturing System: From Communicating to Autonomous Product

International audienceProduction activity control of industrial systems is evolving in two separate directions for the past decade, double evolution which seems contra-dictory at first. First, a deeper integration of all the actors in/each actor of the industrial system, from the raw materials suppliersup to the customerservice department dealing with customers'rising demands. This is known as the con-cept of "supply chain", generally international as the market is globalized. The second evolution is due to an increasing need for flexibility and reactivity, on one hand to answer to an increasingly varied demand, and on the other hand to have a better reaction to the disruptions appearing in the increasingly complex manufacturing systems. These evolutions imply a deep modification of the structure of these manufacturing systems, progressively mutating from an hie-rarchical organization – where the decisions are taken level by level, top to bot-tom, each level communicating its decisions to lower levels – to a networked organization, each node of this network being to some extent an/more or less an autonomous decision center. This control concept is very attractive, as it enables to significantly increase the control's robustness by considering model-ing uncertainties and disruptions. However, very few academic papers deal with a detailed example of highly intelligent products in a context of product driven systems. This paper intends to show the evolution of a flexible manufacturing system, from a data oriented perspective to a product driven one