Adaptive scheduling based on self-organized holonic swarm of schedulers

Scheduling plays an important role in the companies’ competiveness, dealing with complex combinatorial problems subject to uncertainty and emergence. In particular, in the ramp-up phase of small lot-sizes of complex products, scheduling is more demanding, e.g. due to late requests and immature technology products and processes. This paper presents the principles of a distributed scheduling architecture based on holonic and swarm principles and implemented using multi-agent system technology. In particular, it is described the coordination among the network of the swarm of schedulers and analysed the impact of embedded self-organization mechanisms.The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme FP7 ARUM project, under grant agreement n° 314056.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Agent-based distributed manufacturing control: a state-of-the-art survey

Manufacturing has faced significant changes during the last years, namely the move from a local economy towards a global and competitive economy, with markets demanding for highly customized products of high quality at lower costs, and with short life cycles. In this environment, manufacturing enterprises, to remain competitive, must respond closely to customer demands by improving their flexibility and agility, while maintaining their productivity and quality. Dynamic response to emergence is becoming a key issue in manufacturing field because traditional manufacturing control systems are built upon rigid control architectures, which cannot respond efficiently and effectively to dynamic change. In these circumstances, the current challenge is to develop manufacturing control systems that exhibit intelligence, robustness and adaptation to the environment changes and disturbances. The introduction of multi-agent systems and holonic manufacturing systems paradigms addresses these requirements, bringing the advantages of modularity, decentralization, autonomy, scalability and re- usability. This paper surveys the literature in manufacturing control systems using distributed artificial intelligence techniques, namely multi-agent systems and holonic manufacturing systems principles. The paper also discusses the reasons for the weak adoption of these approaches by industry and points out the challenges and research opportunities for the future

The Method of Modelling the Intermodal Network in Poland Using Multi-Agent Systems

For a dozen or so years, despite a transitional financial crisis, the European Union countries have been observing a steady growth in the movement of goods by road transport. As specified by the European Commission, the share of road transport in total movement of goods (in tkm) in the European countries amounted to 76.9%1. Rail transport accounted for as little as 17.6%2. This, in combination with the increase in trade in goods, results in the fact that an increasing number of roads reach their maximum capacity and the efficient organisation of transportation processes becomes increasingly difficult or impossible [1, 3, 10]. Moreover, as the authors have observed, enterprises make attempts at fulfilling their customers' orders frequently and quickly, using mainly road transport. The consequence of such an approach is that the enterprises, while improving the processes and increasing customer satisfaction in short term, may contribute to their deterioration in long term. It should be noted that frequent and quick deliveries require more means of transportation which in turn boosts traffic congestion and deterioration of road safety. The growing congestion results in the decrease of average driving speed, which eventually extends the delivery time and thus may affect customer satisfaction and, in worst-case scenario, loss of orders

The divergence of theoretical and actual designs in a holonic packing cell

The aim of this paper is to take the reader through the decisions made in designing a holonic system architecture to support customised packing of gift boxes with personal grooming (Gillette) products. The paper highlights issues that cause a divergence between a theoretical model of a holonic system and the approach that was actually encoded

Industrial cyber physical systems supported by distributed advanced data analytics

The industry digitization is transforming its business models, organizational structures and operations, mainly promoted by the advances and the mass utilization of smart methods, devices and products, being leveraged by initiatives like Industrie 4.0. In this context, the data is a valuable asset that can support the smart factory features through the use of Big Data and advanced analytics approaches. In order to address such requirements and related challenges, Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) promote the development of more intelligent, adaptable and responsiveness supervisory and control systems capable to overcome the inherent complexity and dynamics of industrial environments. In this context, this work presents an agent-based industrial CPS, where agents are endowed with data analysis capabilities for distributed, collaborative and adaptive process supervision and control. Additionally, to address the different industrial levels’ requirements, this work combines two main data analysis scopes: at operational level, applying distributed data stream analysis for rapid response monitoring and control, and at supervisory level, applying big data analysis for decision-making, planning and optimization. Some experiments have been performed in the context of an electric micro grid where agents were able to perform distributed data analysis to predict the renewable energy production.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The concept of intermodal network development in Poland using multi-agent systems

The market share and the development of intermodal haulages, they are still at a very low level. It amounts in total goods transported by rail to 2,5% - 3%. The major reason for this situation is lack of coherent method for intermodal network designing. Such method should take into consideration strong relations between transport users, transport service providers, so the micro scale, as well as the regions where they are operating, so the meta scale.The aim of this paper is to present method which makes possible elimination of existing barriers in intermodal transport. The proposed method, for the sake of relations between actors involved in intermodal transport organisation, refers to multi-agent system concept. This system assumes coordinated actions in favour of concrete problem solution with support of cooperating agents, that is, in described paper, actors connected with intermodal transport.Paper presents results of the research project N509 398536, called: „Intermodal logistics network in Poland – concept of model solutions and implementation aspects” carried out by the Institute of Logistics and Warehousing under scientific leadership of professor Leszek Mindur

Complexity of Multi-Modal Transportation and Systems of Systems

The multi-modal transportation comprising diverse infrastructures, means & operations, energy resources, rules & regulations and a broad community of stakeholders constitute a complex yet real candidate for formalisation, analysis and optimization. It is shown that the complexity of the system is best described by viewing the challenges of its complexity as a System of Systems (SoS). The objective of this paper is to make an attempt to define and formalise the loose concept of “System of Systems” within the standard framework of Systems Theory and exploit this new theoretical foundation as a basis for understanding, characterisation, evaluation, assessment and management of complexity, relationships and optimal performance in a multi-modal transportation context. The longer term objective is to develop a robust systems framework for scientific treatment of requirements, constraints, risks, resilience, capacity, performance and trade-offs in multi-modal transportation setting

Enhancing service-oriented holonic multi-agent systems with self-organization

Multi-agents systems and holonic manufacturing systems are suitable approaches to design a new and alternative class of production control systems, based on the decentralization of control functions over distributed autonomous and cooperative entities. However, in spite of their enormous potential they lack some aspects related to interoperability, migration, optimisation in decentralised structures and truly self-adaptation. This paper discusses the advantages of combining these paradigms with complementary paradigms, such as service-oriented architectures, and enhancing them with biologically inspired algorithms and techniques, such as emergent behaviour and self-organization, to reach a truly robust, agile and adaptive control system. An example of applying a stigmergy-based algorithm to dynamically route pallets in a production system is also provided