Combining multi-agent model, SOA and ontologies in a distributed and interoperable architecture to manage multi-site production projects

Today, production projects are often achieved by multi-site production and the associated markets become more and more dynamic and service oriented. In this context, the multi-site project management is a difficult task, which has to take into account not only the decision distribution and the information confidentiality, but also the heterogeneity existing between different production management systems used by partners. The generic planning model SCEP (supervisor, customer, environment, producer) based on multi-agent technology offers a well-adapted solution to the decision distribution and information confidentiality in project management. SCEP was integrated with ontological mechanisms and SOA (serviceoriented architecture) components in a new architecture Semantic-SCEPSOA, which makes it possible to achieve a distributed and interoperable management of multi-site production projects. In the case of two sites managed by two different planning software applications, the semantic interoperability effectiveness is shown within the S-SCEPSOA architecture

Architecture distribuée interopérable pour la gestion des projets multi-sites : application à la planification des activités de production

Aujourd’hui, la production est souvent multi-site car les entreprises se recentrent sur leurs cœurs de métiers. Dans ce contexte, la gestion des projets est une tâche difficile car il faut prendre en compte la distribution de la décision et l’hétérogénéité qui peut exister entre les différentes applications de production des partenaires. Les Systèmes Multi-Agents, et notamment le modèle SCEP (Superviseur, Client, Environnement, Producteur), apportent une solution satisfaisante au problème de la distribution de la décision, en instaurant une coopération entre des agents responsables de la gestion des projets client et des agents représentant les sites de production distants. Néanmoins, ce modèle présente des limites à cause de sa faible capacité à communiquer et à coopérer avec des modèles et des systèmes de gestion hétérogènes ainsi qu’à sa difficulté à localiser les nouveaux partenaires. Dans ce mémoire, nous proposons une architecture distribuée et interopérable SCEP-SOA intégrant les concepts du modèle SCEP et ceux du modèle SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) qui offre des mécanismes de mise en relation des partenaires et permet des communications entre des systèmes et des applications hétérogènes. Pour garantir la bonne compréhension des informations échangées entre les partenaires, l’architecture SCEP-SOA met en œuvre une stratégie d’interopérabilité sémantique basée sur l’intégration des ontologies. Cette stratégie s’articule autour d’une ontologie globale et commune utilisée pour l’échange des informations, et des mécanismes de correspondances entre cette ontologie globale et les ontologies locales des partenaires. Cette architecture est illustrée sur un cas d’étude où l’on se focalise sur l’interopérabilité entre des applications dédiées à la planification des projets de fabrication multi-sites. ABSTRACT : Today, the production is often multi-site because companies focus on their core competencies. In this context, projects’ management is a difficult task because it must take into account the distribution of the decision and the heterogeneity which can exist between the various production applications of the partners. The Multi-agents systems, in particular the SCEP model (Supervisor, Customer, Environment, Producer), offer a satisfactory solution for the decision distribution problem, by establishing a cooperation between agents responsible of the management of the customer projects and agents representing the remote production sites. Nevertheless, this model presents limits because of its weak ability to communicate and to cooperate with heterogeneous models and management systems, as well as in its difficulty to localize new partners. In this dissertation, we propose a distributed and interoperable architecture, SCEP-SOA, which integrates concepts of the SCEP model and SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) which offers mechanisms for putting in relation various partners and allows communication between heterogeneous systems and applications. To insure the good understanding of the information exchanged between the partners, the SCEP-SOA architecture implements a strategy of semantic interoperability based on the integration of ontologies. This strategy is based on the use of a shared global ontology for information exchange, and on mechanisms of mappings between the global ontology and the partners’ local ontologies. This architecture is illustrated by a study case in which we focus on the interoperability between applications dedicated to the planning of manufacturing multi-sites project