An Approach to Multi-Agent Cooperative Scheduling in the Supply-Chain, With Examples

Abstract

The approach to scheduling presented in this article is applicable to multi-agent cooperative supply-chain production-distribution scheduling problems. The approach emphasises a scheduling temporal perspective, it is based on a set of three steps each agent must perform, in which the agents communicate through an interaction protocol, and presupposes the sharing of some specific temporal information (among other) about the scheduling problem, for coordination. It allows the set of agents involved to conclude if a given scheduling problem has, or has not, any feasible solutions. In the first case, agent actions are prescribed to re-schedule, and so repair, a first solution, if it contains constraint violations. The resulting overall agent scheduling behaviour is cooperative. We also include some results of the application of the approach based on simulations.