Trends of Manufacturing Systems with Distributed Computing

The industry developed dramatically in the second half of the 20th century, And with it developed and manufacturing systems ranging from manual to fully computerized systems employing information and communication technology (ICT). This fact has made the manufacturing systems to be totally dependent on ICT and therefore these systems have to keep pace with the advancement in ICT. Distributed computing has totally changed the computing paradigm in recent times resulting in rapid employment of these technologies in the manufacturing sector. An important variable in the equation determining the trend of manufacturing technologies is the purchaser choice and preference which has become active recently. To address these heterogeneous user demands, the Autonomous Decentralized System (ADS) concept was introduced five decades ago. The ADS has been a significant development incorporated in modern manufacturing systems and have been standardised as the de-facto standard for factory automation. These systems hold the assure for on-line system maintenance, timeliness and assurance, ensuring greater productivity and cost benefit emerging as the system of choice in automated manufacturing systems. This paper reviews the ADS, its application to a manufacturing system, assesses the state of the art and discusses the future trends.