An Agent-Oriented Modelling Approach for Agile Manufacturing

This paper presents a conceptual hierarchically structured multi-agent architecture for manufacturing systems’ modelling. The architecture provides a suitable decision-making framework where each agent represents a node in the hierarchic tree of manufacturing systems such as the company as a whole, each plant within the company, each cell or line within the plant, each machine in a cell or line. Each agent has the ability to perceive and evaluate changes that occur in the manufacturing environment, interact with other agents in the system in order to reach an optimal decision, and act based on that decision. In other words, agents respond timely to unexpected changes by continuously co-ordinating their activities, and allocating manufacturing resources dynamically based on actual shop-floor situation. The flexibility of this architecture also lies in its ability to accommodate both homogenous and heterogeneous agents, and its capability for the dynamic addition and removal of agents using a conceptual intelligent communication mechanism similar to the blackboard messaging system.