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25
An Agent-Based Manufacturing Enterprise Infrastructure for Distributed Integrated Intelligent Manufacturing Systems
- IN PROCEEDINGS THE PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF INTELLIGENT AGENTS AND MULTI-AGENT SYSTEMS
, 1998
"... Manufacturing enterprises are now moving towards open architectures for integrating their activities with those of their suppliers, customers and partners within wide supply chain networks. Agent-based technology provides a natural way to design and implement such environments. This paper presents a ..."
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Cited by 26 (4 self)
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Manufacturing enterprises are now moving towards open architectures for integrating their activities with those of their suppliers, customers and partners within wide supply chain networks. Agent-based technology provides a natural way to design and implement such environments. This paper presents an agent-based manufacturing enterprise infrastructure. After a brief review of recent advancements in this domain, we describe the main features of the proposed infrastructure and the functions of its components. A machine-centered dynamic scheduling/rescheduling mechanism is then detailed and a prototype implementation is presented.
An Agent-Based Approach for Dynamic Manufacturing Scheduling
, 1998
"... Manufacturing scheduling is a difficult problem, particularly when it takes place in an open, dynamic environment. Agent-based technology has recently been used in attempts to resolve this problem. A bidding mechanism based on Contract Net protocol is often proposed as a key solution component. Our ..."
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Cited by 22 (2 self)
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Manufacturing scheduling is a difficult problem, particularly when it takes place in an open, dynamic environment. Agent-based technology has recently been used in attempts to resolve this problem. A bidding mechanism based on Contract Net protocol is often proposed as a key solution component. Our approach is to combine a bidding mechanism based on Contract Net protocol with a mediation mechanism based on Mediator architecture, for dynamic manufacturing scheduling and rescheduling. A machine-centered scheduling mechanism and related concepts and mechanisms are also described. Keywords: Agents, scheduling, distributed manufacturing systems, bidding mechanism, Contract Net, mediator. 1. Introduction Manufacturing scheduling is a difficult problem, particularly when it takes place in an open, dynamic environment. In a job shop manufacturing system, rarely do things go as expected. The set of things to do is generally dynamic. The system may be asked to do additional tasks that were no...
An Agent-Based Approach for Manufacturing Enterprise Integration and Supply Chain Management
- Globalization of Manufacturing in the Digital Communications Era of the 21st Century: Innovation, Agility, and the Virtual Enterprise
, 1998
"... Improving supply chain management is very important for increasing competitive position and profitability. Manufacturing enterprises are now moving towards open architectures for integrating their activities with those of their suppliers, customers and partners within wide supply chain networks. Thi ..."
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Cited by 17 (1 self)
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Improving supply chain management is very important for increasing competitive position and profitability. Manufacturing enterprises are now moving towards open architectures for integrating their activities with those of their suppliers, customers and partners within wide supply chain networks. This paper presents an agentbased approach for manufacturing enterprise integration and supply chain management to meet such requirements. A hybrid agent-based architecture is proposed, the main features of such an architecture are then described, and a prototype implementation is presented. Keywords Enterprise integration, distributed manufacturing systems, supply chain management, agent, multi-agent systems, mediator 1 INTRODUCTION Manufacturing enterprises are confronted with growing competition, the evolution of new markets and increasingly complex global political and economic scenarios. The need for cheaper and more cost-effective products is evident. Improving supply chain management...
A Hybrid Agent-Oriented Infrastructure for Modeling Manufacturing Enterprises
- In Proceedings of the Knowledge Acquisition Workshop (KAW-98
, 1998
"... Manufacturing enterprises are now moving towards open architectures for integrating their activities with those of their suppliers and customers within wide supply chain networks. Traditional knowledge engineering approaches with large scale or very large scale knowledge bases are not suited for suc ..."
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Cited by 13 (2 self)
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Manufacturing enterprises are now moving towards open architectures for integrating their activities with those of their suppliers and customers within wide supply chain networks. Traditional knowledge engineering approaches with large scale or very large scale knowledge bases are not suited for such widely distributed systems. Agent-based technology provides a natural way for resolving this problem. This paper presents a hybrid agent-oriented infrastructure for modeling manufacturing enterprises so as to integrate design, planning, scheduling, simulation, execution, material supply, and marketing services into a distributed intelligent open environment. In this paper, we discuss the requirements for next generation of manufacturing enterprises, and describe the main features of the proposed general infrastructure and the functions of its components. A machine-centered dynamic scheduling and rescheduling mechanism is then detailed and a prototype implementation is presented. Keywords:...
An Experimental Environment for Exchanging Engineering Design Knowledge By Cognitive Agents
, 1997
"... Large engineering design projects involve many different disciplines each with their own area of concern and expertise. A large amount of information (design data and knowledge) is processed and exchanged among such disciplines, and even within each discipline. Traditional computer environments cann ..."
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Cited by 9 (1 self)
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Large engineering design projects involve many different disciplines each with their own area of concern and expertise. A large amount of information (design data and knowledge) is processed and exchanged among such disciplines, and even within each discipline. Traditional computer environments cannot cope easily with such complex situations. Hence new approaches must be sought. This paper presents an experimental design environment organized as a population of asynchronous cognitive agents. Issues about the general architecture, the internal structure of an agent and inter-agent communication mechanism are discussed. A prototype including a number of independent agents is then presented and demonstrated on a small mechanical design. Keywords Cognitive Agents, Engineering Design Knowledge, CAD, Mechanical Design. 1 INTRODUCTION Large engineering design projects require the cooperation of multidisciplinary design teams using sophisticated and powerful engineering tools such as comme...
A Multi-Agent Approach to Collaborative Design of Modular Products
- Concurr. Eng. Res. Appl
, 2004
"... Abstract: Concurrent Engineering (CE) has become a very popular term while complex product markets are demanding the ability to deliver a high variety of customized products quickly and globally. One of the CE issues has been centered on the way in which the knowledge of the functions such as manufa ..."
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Cited by 4 (2 self)
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Abstract: Concurrent Engineering (CE) has become a very popular term while complex product markets are demanding the ability to deliver a high variety of customized products quickly and globally. One of the CE issues has been centered on the way in which the knowledge of the functions such as manufacturing, logistics, marketing, and sales, is captured and managed. To be easily communicated and shared, tacit knowledge needs to be externalized as explicit knowledge, e.g., design rules, and this explicit knowledge incorporated with information technology supports the design decision-making. This paper presents an agent-based system to knowledge management, specifically in design knowledge externalization, and focuses on decision support of modular product collaborative design. The solution approach involves (1) modeling/representing modular products and design knowledge explicitly and (2) supporting collaborative decision-making with agent techniques intelligently. The agent-based system allows the designer to develop a product with the assistance of agents characterizing intelligence, autonomy, and cooperation. The novelty of this paper is that the design operations are formulated and stored in data mart. Therefore, implicit knowledge can be externalized as design rules using the data mining technology. With these rules, design decision-making is supported effectively.
A Multi-agent Architecture for Knowledge Management Systems
- in Proc. 2nd IEEE ISADS
, 2002
"... This paper concerns a multi-agent system architecture for knowledge management (KM) systems in research and development (R&D) projects. R&D teams have no time to organize project information and to articulate the rationale behind the actions that generate the information. Our aim is to pr ..."
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Cited by 3 (0 self)
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This paper concerns a multi-agent system architecture for knowledge management (KM) systems in research and development (R&D) projects. R&D teams have no time to organize project information and to articulate the rationale behind the actions that generate the information. Our aim is to provide an architecture, which supports collaborative work and helps to capture and to organize experiences without overloading the team members with extra-work.
Developing Intelligent Manufacturing Systems Using Collaborative Agents
- IN THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2ND INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON INTELLIGENT MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS
, 1999
"... Agent technology has been considered as an important approach for developing distributed intelligent manufacturing systems. This paper presents some preliminary results of our two ongoing research projects related to the development of a new collaborative agent system architecture for intelligent ma ..."
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Cited by 3 (3 self)
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Agent technology has been considered as an important approach for developing distributed intelligent manufacturing systems. This paper presents some preliminary results of our two ongoing research projects related to the development of a new collaborative agent system architecture for intelligent manufacturing systems. The main features of the proposed architecture are described; some domain independent mechanisms and components are briefly introduced; and a case study is presented.
Using Learning to Improve Multi-Agent Systems for Design
, 1997
"... Contents 1. Motivation 3 1.1 Why design? 3 1.2 Agents -- an AI answer to complex problems 4 1.3 Performance of multi-agent systems 6 1.4 Anticipatint everything 7 1.5 Relying on change 9 1.5.1 Individual learning vs. multi-agent learning 9 1.5.2 One learning process vs. several learning proc ..."
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Cited by 2 (0 self)
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Contents 1. Motivation 3 1.1 Why design? 3 1.2 Agents -- an AI answer to complex problems 4 1.3 Performance of multi-agent systems 6 1.4 Anticipatint everything 7 1.5 Relying on change 9 1.5.1 Individual learning vs. multi-agent learning 9 1.5.2 One learning process vs. several learning processes 11 1.6 Where lies the challenge? 12 2. Problem definition 14 2.1 Specific elements of design problem-solving 14 2.2 The static and dynamic sides of the multi-agent system 17 2.2.1 The static side of the multi-agent system 17 2.2.2 The dynamic side of the multi-agent system 18 2.3 Learning while designing 20 3. Related research 23 3.1 Research in multi-agent design 23 3.2 Research in learning in design 25 3.2.1 Learning from previous designs 26 3.2.2 Learning about the design proces 27 3.3 Multi-agent learning 29 4. Possible approaches for the multi-agent models 32 5. Proposed approach 35 5.1 The multi-agent architecture 35 5.1.1 The agent model 35 5.1.2 Team d
The EMS Model
, 1999
"... The interface which connects the agent to its environment is usually based on the particular architecture of the agent. This makes it difficult for agents of different architecturesto interact with each other within the same virtual environment. In this paper, we present a model to describe the ..."
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Cited by 2 (0 self)
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The interface which connects the agent to its environment is usually based on the particular architecture of the agent. This makes it difficult for agents of different architecturesto interact with each other within the same virtual environment. In this paper, we present a model to describe the agent/world interface in a generic, architecture independent way. The usefulness of the model is demonstrated in a generic testbed library which facilitates rapid prototyping for experimental multi-agent systems. Also, a network protocol derived from the basic model which allows for the development of distributed testbeds is presented.
