A multi-agent based approach to dynamic scheduling with flexible processing capabilities

Abstract

A multi-agent based system is proposed to simultaneous scheduling of flexible machine groups and material handling system working under a manufacturing dynamic environment. The proposed model is designed by means of Prometheus TM methodology and programmed in JACK TM agent based systems development environment. Each agent in the model is autonomous and has an ability to cooperate and negotiate with the other agents in the system. Due to these abilities of agents, the structure of the system is more suitable to handle dynamic events. The proposed dynamic scheduling system is tested on several test problems the literature and the results are quite satisfactory because it generates effective schedules for both dynamic cases in the real time and static problem sets. Although the model is designed as an online method and has a dynamic structure, obtained schedule performance parameters are very close to those obtained from offline optimization based algorithms.

Manufacturing resources coordination organisation and tasks allocation approach inspired by the endocrine regulation principle

“…These coordination algorithms have the flaw of over‐communication. When the manufacturing environment becomes complicated and the processing tasks become numerous, the multi‐agent system based on the direct negotiation mechanism usually has the phenomenon of too much information interaction, which leads to the problem of response delay and low decision‐making efficiency [19–23].…”

A Dynamic Scheduling Method for Logistics Tasks Oriented to Intelligent Manufacturing Workshop

“…Demesure et al proposed a decentralized motion planning and scheduling of AGV in a FMS, and a motion planner is combined with a scheduler allowing each AGV to update its destination resource during navigation based on a two-step strategy in order to complete the transported product [37]. In addition to these studies on AGVs static scheduling, some researches on AGVs dynamic scheduling have also made a lot of results [38][39][40][41]. But the dynamic in these studies is mainly reflected on the conflict resolution of AGV running, and these studies are not applicable to the model proposed in this paper.…”

Hybrid System for Simultaneous Job Shop Scheduling and Layout Optimization Based on Multi-agents and Genetic Algorithm

“…It is also important to note that few studies present the job shop scheduling problem for efficient simulation layouts [17]. On the other hand, some authors integrate in a collaborative way the job shop scheduling with layout planning, that is, presenting a hybrid system capable of optimizing multiple solutions [15,16].…”