An approach to the formal specification of holonic control systems

In the manufacturing world, globalisation leads to a trend towards the reduction of batches and product life cycle, and the increase of part diversity, which are in conflict with other requirements, such as the cost reduction achieved with higher productivity. Thus, the challenge is to develop flexible, agile and intelligent management and control architectures that satisfy the referred requirements. The holonic manufacturing and the agent-based manufacturing approaches allow a new approach to the manufacturing problem, through concepts such as modularity, decentralisation, autonomy and re-use of control software components. ADACOR, one of the holonic architectures recently proposed, defines a set of autonomous and intelligent holons aiming to improve the performance of control system in industrial scenarios characterised by the frequent occurrence of unexpected disturbances. The formal modeling and validation of the specifications of the ADACOR-holons and of the interactions between these holons to implement the manufacturing control functions is of critical importance. In this paper, a formal methodology is introduced and applied to model the dynamic behaviour of the ADACOR-holon classes

A switching mechanism framework for optimal coupling of predictive scheduling and reactive control in manufacturing hybrid control architectures

Nowadays, manufacturing systems are seeking control architectures that offer efficient production performance and reactivity to disruptive events. Dynamic hybrid control architectures are a promising approach as they are not only able to switch dynamically between hierarchical, heterarchical and semi-heterarchical structures, they can also switch the level of coupling between predictive scheduling and reactive control techniques. However, few approaches address an efficient switching process in terms of structure and coupling. This paper presents a switching mechanism framework in dynamic hybrid control architectures, which exploits the advantages of hierarchical manufacturing scheduling systems and heterarchical manufacturing execution systems, and also mitigates the respective reactivity and optimality drawbacks. The main feature in this framework is that it monitors the system dynamics online and shifts between different operating modes to attain the most suitable production control strategy. The experiments were carried out in an emulation of a real manufacturing system to illustrate the benefits of including a switching mechanism in simulated scenarios. The results show that the switching mechanism improves response to disruptions in a global performance indicator as it permits to select the best alternative from several operating modes.This article was supported by COLCIENCIAS Departamento Administrativo de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación 10.13039/100007637 [Grant Number Convocatoria 568 Doctorados en el exterior]; Pontificia Universidad Javeriana [Grant Number Programa de Formacion de posgrados].info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Analysis and evaluation of multi-agent systems for digital production planning and control

Industrial manufacturing companies have different IT control functions that can be represented with a so-called hierarchical automation pyramid. While these conventional software systems especially support the mass production with consistent demand, the future project “Industry 4.0” focuses on customer-oriented and adaptable production processes. In order to move from conventional production systems to a factory of the future, the control levels must be redistributed. With the help of cyber-physical production systems, an interoperable architecture must be, implemented which removes the hierarchical connection of the former control levels. The accompanied digitalisation of industrial companies makes the transition to modular production possible. At the same time, the requirements for production planning and control are increasing, which can be solved with approaches such as multi-agent systems (MASs). These software solutions are autonomous and intelligent objects with a distinct collaborative ability. There are different modelling methods, communication and interaction structures, as well as different development frameworks for these new systems. Since multi-agent systems have not yet been established as an industrial standard due to their high complexity, they are usually only tested in simulations. In this bachelor thesis, a detailed literature review on the topic of MASs in the field of production planning and control is presented. In addition, selected multi-agent approaches are evaluated and compared using specific classification criteria. In addition, the applicability of using these systems in digital and modular production is assessed

An agile and adaptive holonic architecture for manufacturing control

Tese de doutoramento. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores. 2004. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Port

Analysis of a Train-operating Company’s Customer Service System during Disruptions:Conceptual Requirements for Gamifying Frontline Staff Development

This paper provides an account of an action research study into the systemic success factors which help frontline staff react to and recover from a rail service disruption. This study focuses on the effective use of information during a disruption to improve customer service, as this is a priority area for train-operating companies (TOCs) in Great Britain. A novel type of systems thinking, known as Process-Oriented Holonic Modelling (PrOH), has been used to investigate and model the ‘Passenger Information During Disruption’ (PIDD) system. This paper presents conceptual requirements for a gamified learning environment; it describes ‘what’; ‘how’ and ‘when’ these systemic success factors could be gamified using a popular disruption management reference framework known as the Mitigate, Prepare, React and Recover (MPRR) framework. This paper will interest managers of and researchers into customer service system disruptions, as well as those wishing to develop new gamified learning environments to improve customer service systems

A process model for the design of multi-agent systems

In this paper, we propose a pragmatic process model for the development of multi-agent system based on the combination of standard software engineering techniques with a special focus on multi-agent systems. The resulting process model is the attempt to make our experience in the design of multi-agent systems available to other system designers. The approach presented in this paper has evolved over several years and it has been successfully applied and refined in different types of multi-agent systems. A short case study of our latest project is included in the paper

A hormone regulation based approach for distributed and on-line scheduling of machines and automated guided vehicles

[EN] With the continuous innovation of technology, automated guided vehicles are playing an increasingly important role on manufacturing systems. Both the scheduling of operations on machines as well as the scheduling of automated guided vehicles are essential factors contributing to the efficiency of the overall manufacturing systems. In this article, a hormone regulation¿based approach for on-line scheduling of machines and automated guided vehicles within a distributed system is proposed. In a real-time environment, the proposed approach assigns emergent tasks and generates feasible schedules implementing a task allocation approach based on hormonal regulation mechanism. This approach is tested on two scheduling problems in literatures. The results from the evaluation show that the proposed approach improves the scheduling quality compared with state-of-the-art on-line and off-line approaches.The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under grant nos 51175262 and 51575264 and the Jiangsu Province Science Foundation for Excellent Youths under grant no. BK2012032. This research was also sponsored by the CASES project which was supported by a Marie Curie International Research Staff Exchange Scheme Fellowship within the 7th European Community Framework Programme under grant agreement no. 294931.Zheng, K.; Tang, D.; Giret Boggino, AS.; Salido, MA.; Sang, Z. (2016). A hormone regulation based approach for distributed and on-line scheduling of machines and automated guided vehicles. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Part B Journal of Engineering Manufacture. 232(1):99-113. https://doi.org/10.1177/0954405416662078S99113232

Increase the adoption of Agent-based Cyber-Physical Production Systems through the Design of Minimally Invasive Solutions

During the last few years, many approaches were proposed to offer companies the ability to have dynamic and flexible production systems. One of the conventional ap-proaches to solving this problem is the implementation of cyber-physical production sys-tems using multi-agent distributed systems. Although these systems can deal with several challenges faced by companies in this area, they have not been accepted and used in real cases. In this way, the primary objective of the proposed work is to understand the chal-lenges usually found in the adoption of these solutions and to develop a strategy to in-crease their acceptance and implementation. Thus, the document focuses on the design and development of cyber-physical produc-tion systems based on agent approaches, requiring minimal changes in the existing pro-duction systems. This approach aims of reducing the impact and the alterations needed to adopt those new cyber-physical production systems. Clarifying the subject, the author presents a definition of a minimal invasive agent-based cyber-physical production system and, the functional requirements that the designers and developers must respect to imple-ment the new software. From these functional requirements derived a list of design princi-ples that must be fulfilled to design and develop a system with these characteristics. Subsequently, to evaluate solutions that aim to be minimally invasive, an evaluation model based on a fuzzy inference system is proposed, which rank the approaches accord-ing to each of the design principles and globally. In this way, the proposed work presents the functional requirements, design principles and evaluation model of minimally invasive cyber-physical production systems, to increase the adoption of such systems

Reference architecture for configuration, planning and control of 21st century manufacturing systems.

Today's dynamic marketplace requires flexible manufacturing systems capable of cost-effective high variety - low volume production in frequently changing product demand and mix. Several new paradigms, e.g. holonic, fractal, biological and responsive manufacturing, have recently been proposed and studied in the academic literature. These 'next generation of manufacturing systems' have been especially designed to meet the requirements of an unstable and unpredictable marketplace. However, very little in-depth research of the configuration, planning and control methodologies of these new concepts has been conducted. This research aims to improve the comprehension and implementation of these 21st century manufacturing systems by developing an integrated reference architecture from the combination of their distinctive features that would enable manufacturing enterprises to handle successfully the configuration/reconfiguration, planning and control activities under the conditions of uncertainty and continuous change.In the course of the research, a detailed investigation into the fractal, biological and responsive manufacturing systems is conducted in order to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each concept. The common and distinctive features of the paradigms are then used to merge them to create an integrated reference architecture. The fractal configuration, biological scheduling and 'resource element' representation of resource capabilities and product processing requirements are selected as the major elements of the new system. A detailed study of fractal layout design resulted in seven distinctive methods for structuring and managing fractal cellular systems. A design methodology that supports three types of dynamic scheduling is developed for biological manufacturing systems. Resource elements are used with fractal layouts and biological scheduling to enhance performance and to enable an integration of the concepts. The proposed reference architecture is modelled and evaluated using object-oriented programming, computer simulation and heuristic algorithms. The research results indicate that the performance of systems that employ biological scheduling and fractal layouts can be improved by using the concept of resource elements to utilise any hidden capabilities of resources and to achieve an optimal distribution of resources on the shop floor