Industry 4.0 (I4.0) brings together new disruptive technologies, increasing future factories’ productivity. Indeed, the control of production processes is fast becoming a key driver for manufacturing operations. Manufacturing control systems have recently been developed for distributed or semi-heterarchical architectures, e.g., holonic systems improving global efficiency and manufacturing operations’ reactiveness. So far, previous studies and applications have not dealt with continuous production processes, such as applications for Water Supply System (WSS), oil refining, or electric power plants. The complexity of continuous production is that a single fault can degrade extensively and even cause service disruption. Therefore, this paper proposes the Holonic Production Unit (HPU) architecture as a solution to control continuous production processes. An HPU is created as a holon unit depicting resources in a continuous process. This unit can detect events within the environment, evaluate several courses of action, and change the parameters aligned to a mission. The proposed approach was tested using a simulated model of WSS. The experiments described in this paper were conducted using a traditional WSS, where the communication and decision-making features allow the application of HPU. The results suggest that constructing a holarchy with different holons can fulfill I4.0 requirements for continuous production processes.

工业 4.0 (I4.0) 汇集了新的颠覆性技术，提高了未来工厂的生产力。事实上，生产过程的控制正迅速成为制造运营的关键驱动因素。最近已经为分布式或半分层架构开发了制造控制系统，例如，提高全局效率和制造操作反应性的完整系统。迄今为止，以前的研究和应用尚未涉及连续生产过程，例如供水系统 (WSS)、炼油或发电厂的应用。连续生产的复杂性在于单个故障可能会大范围降级，甚至导致服务中断。所以，本文提出了 Holonic 生产单元 (HPU) 架构作为控制连续生产过程的解决方案。HPU 被创建为描述连续过程中的资源的完整单元。该单元可以检测环境中的事件，评估多个行动方案，并根据任务更改参数。使用WSS 的模拟模型对所提出的方法进行了测试。本文中描述的实验是使用传统的 WSS 进行的，其中通信和决策功能允许 HPU 的应用。结果表明，构建具有不同完全子的 holarchy 可以满足 I4.0 对连续生产过程的要求。评估多个行动方案，并根据任务更改参数。所提出的方法使用WSS 的模拟模型进行了测试。本文中描述的实验是使用传统的 WSS 进行的，其中通信和决策功能允许 HPU 的应用。结果表明，构建具有不同完全子的 holarchy 可以满足 I4.0 对连续生产过程的要求。评估多个行动方案，并根据任务更改参数。所提出的方法使用WSS 的模拟模型进行了测试。本文中描述的实验是使用传统的 WSS 进行的，其中通信和决策功能允许 HPU 的应用。结果表明，构建具有不同完全子的 holarchy 可以满足 I4.0 对连续生产过程的要求。