Agent-Based Manufacturing and Control Systems: New Agile Manufacturing Solutions for Achieving Peak Performance
Features
Summary
Traditional manufacturing systems rely upon centralized, hierarchical systems that are not responsive enough to the increasing demand for mass customization. Decentralized, or heterarchical, management systems using autonomous agents promise to nullify the limitations of previous solutions.
Agent-Based Manufacturing and Control Systems: New Agile Manufacturing Solutions for Achieving Peak Performance offers a survey of both the literature and the practical applications of this technology. Using a realistic example of a fictitious firm throughout, the book indicates when agent-based systems are appropriate, enumerates techniques to decompose a problem into entities that can be modeled as agents, provides a step-by-step guide to implementation, and offers hints for using simulation to design the system. The authors pay particular attention to object-oriented techniques and to the selection of appropriate tools and inter-agent communication standards, with specific reference to JADE middleware and FIPA framework.
Practical, applicative, and thoroughly modern, this text provides all the tools necessary for implementing an extremely flexible, robust, adaptive, and fault-tolerant manufacturing system. This is the perfect reference for AI researchers, industrial manufacturing engineers, operations researchers, and plant managers who wish to develop the most efficient manufacturing systems available.
Table of Contents
AGENT TECHNOLOGY IN MODERN PRODUCTION SYSTEMS
Introduction
Agents and Multiagent Systems
From Agent Technology to Manufacturing Practice
Book Motivations and Purposes
References
ISSUES IN DESIGNING AGENT-BASED MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS
Introduction
Agent System Engineering
Issues in Designing Agent-Based Manufacturing Systems at PS-Bikes
Conclusions
References
AGENTS FOR PLANNING, SCHEDULING, AND CONTROL
Introduction
Focusing on Planning, Scheduling, and Control Activities in Manufacturing
Planning, Scheduling, and Control in Manufacturing from an Integrated Perspective
Basic Concepts in Production Planning
Basic Concepts in Production Scheduling
Basic Concepts in Production Control
Agent-Based Applications in Manufacturing Planning and Scheduling
Agent-Based Applications for Scheduling and Control in Manufacturing
Planning, Scheduling, and Control In PS-Bikes
Conclusions
References
AGENT-BASED SIMULATION Manuel Gentile, Massimo Paolucci, and Roberto Sacile
Introduction
Modeling and Simulating in Manufacturing
Multiagent-Based Simulation
Platforms to Support Multiagent-Based Simulation Development
An Application of MABS in PS-Bikes
Conclusions
References
AGENT SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION Massimo Cossentino and Luca Sabatucci
Introduction
A Case Study: Designing the PS-Bikes System
Designing the Solution with PASSI
Agent Implementation
References
PAST SUCCESSES
Introduction
Two Outstanding Supply Chain-Oriented MAS Applications in Manufacturing
Successful MAS Applications in Manufacturing Planning and Scheduling
Successful MAS Applications in Manufacturing Scheduling and Control
Practical Working Industrial Applications
Conclusions
References
FUTURE CHALLENGES
Introduction
Next Generation e-Manufacturing Solutions
What Must Be Refined in Agent-Based Manufacturing
What Has Yet to Be Done in Agent-Based Manufacturing
PS-Bikes and Its Challenging "Agentification" Process to Achieve Agility
Conclusions
References
