Coordination Mechanisms for Multi-Agent Manufacturing Systems: Applications to Integrated Manufacturing Scheduling

The advent of information technology (IT) has made today’s manufacturing systems increasingly distributed. Typically such a system consists of a complex array of computer-based decision units, controllers, and databases. Rather than dealing with each component individually, it is necessary to have a new paradigm for management of manufacturing systems, so that all the components and their operations can be managed in an integrated fashion. The multi-agent framework presented in this paper is such a paradigm for achieving system integration. We specifically emphasize the coordination mechanisms needed for ensuring the orderly operations and concerted decision making among the components—i.e., agents—of the manufacturing systems. The application of the framework to a printed circuit board manufacturing system and the performance results are also described.