Applying Multi-Agent System Modelling to the Scheduling Problem in a Ceramic Tile Factory

The actual ceramic tile sector needs dynamic production processes to offer its clients on-line programming. Thus, companies can manage real-time response about their services and delivery times of required products, tackling a Mass Customization process in which design and sales activities are done before the production stage. The customer service must cover all activities that can improve the client satisfaction (offers, orders, after-sales services, etc.). Moreover, production tasks scheduling in a ceramic tile factory is a complex problem which requires robust and flexible software applications. Recent advances in Multi-Agent Systems applied to general scheduling problems and industrial applications have demonstrated the advantages of the agent technology in complex distributed problems. In this work we present a Multi-Agent System modelling for a scheduling problem in a ceramic tile factory. Our approach tries to improve the production performance, increase the schedule reliability and keep updated schedules. We propose a multi-agent system in which the constituent agents cooperate to find a feasible schedule taking into account on-line orders, factory layout and capacity, time constraints, anticipated demands and constraints imposed by the master plan. The value of our approach is two fold. On the one hand it is useful for defining the production tasks schedule, while on the other hand it can be suitable for simulating purposes, for example to find out whether a customer order is feasible or to figure out different schedules for a specific production lot.