Agent-based distributed scheduling for virtual job shops

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. Nowadays, market globalisation and stiff worldwide competition require flexible, demand-driven, and reconfigurable production systems that can adapt to the requirements of the increasing reduction in product life cycle and rapid changes in market demand. The advent and development of network technology (especially the Internet) and distributed computing technology make it possible for geographically dispersed manufacturing resources to be integrated and deployed effectively and efficiently. In addition, manufacturing enterprises can expand their throughput within a short time and rapidly reduce the production cycle via transferring certain jobs to other available manufacturing resources in the globalised manufacturing environment, viz., manufacturing enterprises can expand their throughput through the dynamic formation of virtual job shops according to the production requirements. Owing to more open manufacturing environments and rapid changes of market demands, the traditional centralised scheduling approaches are not suitable for this open distributed manufacturing environment. This paper proposes a distributed scheduling approach in which a multi-agent solution towards a 'task-machine' assignment is presented. The main points of discussion are the formation of a virtual job shop that is based on market mechanism and the distributed scheduling approach based on negotiation. 1. Introduction The globalisation of market and stiff worldwide competition compel manufacturing enterprises to produce goods rapidly, with high quality and low cost so as to be able to better respond to rapid changes in market demand and consumer expectation. The advent and development of the network and distributed computing technologies has enabled manufacturing enterprises to make use of geographically dispersed manufacturing resources to expand their throughput and increase the speed of response to fluctuant customers' demands. A flexible, demand-driven, and reconfigurable production system with advanced management mechanisms, highly efficient information processing, and flexible production scheduling and planning is an effective …