Agent-based Distributed Planning and Scheduling in Global Manufacturing

Scheduling and resource allocation problems are pervasive and important in the management of industrial and government organizations. With advent of new technology and fast evolvement in industry, the enterprise is gradually moving toward global manufacturing for efficient operational management and competent strategic decision making. In the past two decades, researchers and practitioners have been applying various techniques (such as artificial intelligence, optimization methodologies, information system design, human factors, etc.) to design and develop planning and scheduling methodologies and systems for different applications. However, the inherent complexity of problems, short life-cycle of planner/scheduler, unrealistic investment of generous-purpose systems, and profligacy of scattering computing resource, accessibility, integration and re-configurability become the essential factors for new planners/schedulers in global manufacturing. The specific objectives of this research are to investigate the following processes: 1) Globalization increases the accessibility and extendibility to migrate the planners/schedulers to a globally connected environment; 2) Collaboration provides the integration and coordination mechanism for computing resources to reform the planners/schedulers as agents in a distributed and environment; and 3) Personalization enhances the reconfigurability and efficiency of computing resources for planner/scheduler agents for customized applications. Keyword: Job shop scheduling, Agent, Communication language, Distributed scheduling, Personalization