Development of methodological framework for effective deployment and operational optimization of flexibly automated production and service systems

为灵活的自动化生产和服务系统的有效部署和操作优化开发方法框架对自动化水平不断提高的追求是现代经济许多部门的普遍趋势，从现代生产系统及其支持的物料搬运系统，对于当前使用的或为未来运输需求考虑的各种智能运输系统，到基于互联网的工作流管理系统，其已经被提出用于在服务部门（如银行、保险索赔和现代物流系统的后端交易）中发生的各种常规操作的机械化。然而，现有的理论，支持部署和实时管理的自动化操作在上述应用程序的上下文中受到挑战的操作复杂性和大规模的性质，这些应用程序。因此，拟议的研究计划旨在开发一个新的方法框架，将解决目前认为的需要与上述任务。更具体地说，拟议计划的成功实施将使所寻求的自动化能力的部署更加精简和强大，并将有助于实现为相应环境设想的操作灵活性和效率。从方法论的角度来看，拟议的研究计划将抽象上述操作作为一类资源分配系统（RAS），必须控制操作安全性，行为正确性/逻辑一致性，并最终性能。更具体地说，拟议的研究计划将利用现有的RAS监督控制理论开发的PI和他的合作者，它将补充这一理论与必要的性能导向的控制/调度理论，这将导致一个完整的发展考虑RAS的实时控制框架。拟议的发展也将基于一个有效的整合的定性和定量DES理论的背景下，现有的RAS，他们将进一步提供相关的近似计划，可以支持一个有效的和系统的权衡之间的操作效率的派生控制政策和计算的易处理性。事实上，应该注意的是，所追求的方法，上述集成的DES定性和定量控制的背景下，所考虑的应用程序是一个实质性的贡献DES理论本身的领域，因为，历史上，并在努力有效地管理潜在的分析复杂性，这两个主要DES领域已经演变的并行轨道。此外，从调度理论的角度来看，建议的研究计划旨在制定有效和高效的调度策略，可以被视为随机网络阻塞，一个主题，目前的调度理论尚未得到广泛的研究，由于所涉及的复杂性。另一方面，预计上述基础上提出的研究定性和定量DES分析和这两个领域的有效整合，将提供必要的分析和计算工具，有效地管理这种复杂性。

Development of a methodological framework for the effective deployment and the operational optimization of flexibly automated production and service systemsThe quest for an ever increasing level of automation is a prevailing trend in many sectors of the modern economy, ranging from the contemporary production systems and their supporting material handling systems, to the various intelligent transportation systems that are currently employed or contemplated for the future transport needs, to the internet-based workflow management systems that have been proposed for the mechanization of various routine operations taking place in service sectors like banking, insurance claiming, and the backend transactions of contemporary logistics systems. However, the existing theory for supporting the deployment and the real-time management of such automated operations in the aforementioned application contexts is challenged by the operational complexity and the large-scale nature of these applications. Hence, the proposed research program seeks to develop a novel methodological framework that will address the currently perceived needs with respect to the aforementioned task. More specifically, the successful implementation of the proposed program will enable a more streamlined and a more robust deployment of the sought automating capability and it will help in materializing the operational flexibility and efficiency that have been contemplated for the corresponding environments. From a methodological standpoint, the proposed research program will abstract the aforementioned operations as a class of resource allocation systems (RAS) that must be controlled for operational safety, behavioral correctness / logical consistency, and eventually performance. More specifically, the proposed research program will leverage the existing theory of RAS supervisory control developed by the PI and his collaborators, and it will complement this theory with the necessary performance-oriented control / scheduling theory that will lead to the complete development of a real-time control framework for the considered RAS. The proposed developments will also be based on an effective integration of qualitative and quantitative DES theory in the context of the existing RAS, and they will further provide pertinent approximating schemes that can support an effective and systematic trade off between the operational efficiency of the derived control policies and their computational tractability. In fact, it should be noticed that the pursued methodology for the aforementioned integration of DES qualitative and quantitative control in the context of the considered application is a substantial contribution to the field of DES theory itself, since, historically, and in an effort to effectively manage the underlying analytical complexities, these two major DES areas have evolved on parallel tracks. Also, when viewed from the standpoint of scheduling theory, the proposed research program seeks to develop effective and efficient scheduling policies for what can be perceived as stochastic networks with blocking, a topic that has not been extensively investigated by the current scheduling theory due to the involved complexity. On the other hand, it is expected that the aforementioned grounding of the proposed research on qualitative and quantitative DES analysis and the effective integration of these two areas, will provide the necessary analytical and computational tools for the effective management of this complexity.