Information Requirements Analysis for Holonic Manufacturing Systems in a Virtual Environment

The design and development of holonic manufacturing systems requires careful, and sometimes risky, decision making to ensure that they will successfully satisfy the demands of an ever-changing market. In this paper, the authors propose a methodology for a holonic manufacturing systems requirement analysis that is based on a virtual reality approach and aimed at assisting designers of such systems along the entire systems design and development process. Exploiting virtual reality helps the user collect valid information quickly and in a correct form by putting the user and the information support elements in direct relation with the operation of the system in a more realisticenvironment. A prototype software system tool is designed to realise the features outlined in each phase of the methodology. A virtual manufacturing environment for matching the physical and the information model domains is utilised to delineate the information system requirementsof holonic manufacturing systems implementation. A set of rules and a knowledge base is appended to the virtual environment to remove any inconsistency that could arise between the material and the information flows during the requirement analysis

Experiencing AUML for the WINK Multi-Agent System

In the last few years, efforts have been done towards bridging the gap between agent technology and de facto standard technologies, aiming at introducing multi-agent systems in industrial applications. This paper presents an experience done by using one of such proposals, Agent UML. Agent UML is a graphical modelling language based on UML. The practical usage of this notation has brought to suggest some refinements of the Agent UML features

A Experiencing AUML for the WINK Multi-Agent System

In the last few years, efforts have been done towards bridging thegap between agent technology and de facto standard technologies,aiming at introducing multi-agent systems in industrialapplications. This paper presents an experience done by using oneof such proposals, Agent UML. Agent UML is a graphicalmodelling language based on UML. The practical usage of thisnotation has brought to suggest some refinements of the AgentUML features