Control Level or Plant Floor Control

On this stage of the manufacturing process, a broad variety of equipments, as like: material handling systems, machine tools, and assembly lines those are directly supervised via dedicated micro-or mini-computers. The microcomputer plays a major role. This is embedded in

(a)     Programmable computers,

(b)     Numerical controllers or NCs, and

(c)     Direct numerical control or DNC.

Additionally, a variety of special-reasons controllers are employed. Control functions comprise scanning of process inputs from various sensors, evaluation, counting of critical parameters, several data reduction, and restricted control of the process. At this stage, the process requires continuous attention and instant correction while out-of-control conditions are encountered. Hence, the computers will be communicating continuously along with the process control elements and requires real-time capabilities. Communication links contain to exist among the machine and plant control level.