Automatic Translation of Blocking Flexible Job Shop Scheduling Problems to Automata Using the Supervisory Control Theory

This paper presents an algorithm to automatically translate a blocking flexible job shop scheduling problem modeling into automata using the Supervisory Control Theory. Different problems of the literature are analyzed in their textual form, and the mechanism for its interpretation and the methodology for generating an automaton that implements the closed-loop behavior under the Supervisory Control Theory are presented. A heuristic is applied to find, among all feasible sequences, the sequence that minimizes the makespan. The methodology is applied to well-known problems and the results are compared with those in the literature, showing the applicability of the Supervisory Control Theory to assist on the solution of Operational Research problems.