Engineering coordination : eine Methodologie für die Koordination von Planungssystemen

Planning problems, like real-world planning and scheduling problems, are complex tasks. As an efficient strategy for handing such problems is the ‘divide and conquer’ strategy has been identified. Each sub problem is then solved independently. Typically the sub problems are solved in a linear way. This approach enables the generation of sub-optimal plans for a number of real world problems. Today, this approach is widely accepted and has been established e.g. in the organizational structure of companies. But existing interdependencies between the sub problems are not sufficiently regarded, as each problem are solved sequentially and no feedback information is given. The field of coordination has been covered by a number of academic fields, like the distributed artificial intelligence, economics or game theory. An important result is, that there exist no method that leads to optimal results in any given coordination problem. Consequently, a suitable coordination mechanism has to be identified for each single coordination problem. Up to now, there exists no process for the selection of a coordination mechanism, neither in the engineering of distributed systems nor in agent oriented software engineering. Within the scope of this work the ECo process is presented, that address exactly this selection problem. The Eco process contains the following five steps. • Modeling of the coordination problem • Defining the coordination requirements • Selection / Design of the coordination mechanism • Implementation • Evaluation Each of these steps is detailed in the thesis. The modeling has to be done to enable a systemic analysis of the coordination problem. Coordination mechanisms have to respect the given situation and the context in which the coordination has to be done. The requirements imposed by the context of the coordination problem are formalized in the coordination requirements. The selection process is driven by these coordination requirements. Using the requirements as a distinction for the selection of a coordination mechanism is a central aspect of this thesis. Additionally these requirements can be used for documentation of design decisions. Therefore, it is reasonable to annotate the coordination mechanisms with the coordination requirements they fulfill and fail to ease the selection process, for a given situation. For that reason we present a new classification scheme for coordination methods within this thesis that classifies existing coordination methods according to a set of criteria that has been identified as important for the distinction between different coordination methods. The implementation phase of the ECo process is supported by the CoPS process and CoPS framework that has been developed within this thesis, as well. The CoPS process structures the design making that has to be done during the implementation phase. The CoPS framework provides a set of basic features software agents need for realizing the selected coordination method. Within the CoPS process techniques are presented for the design and implementation of conversations between agents that can be applied not only within the context of the coordination of planning systems, but for multiagent systems in general. The ECo-CoPS approach has been successfully validated in two case studies from the logistic domain.Reale Planungsprobleme, wie etwa die Produktionsplanung in einer Supply Chain, sind komplex Planungsprobleme. Eine übliche Strategie derart komplexen Problemen zu lösen, ist es diese Probleme in einfachere Teilprobleme zu zerlegen und diese dann separat, meist sequentiell, zu lösen (divide-and-conquer Strategie). Dieser Ansatz erlaubt die Erstellung von (suboptimalen) Plänen für eine Reihe von realen Anwendungen, und ist heute in den Organisationsstrukturen von größeren Unternehmen institutionalisiert worden. Allerdings werden Abhängigkeiten zwischen den Teilproblemen nicht ausreichend berücksichtigt, da die Partialprobleme sequentiell ohne Feedback gelöst werden. Die erstellten Teillösungen müssen deswegen oft nachträglich koordiniert werden. Das Gebiet der Koordination wird in verschiedenen Forschungsgebieten, wie etwa der verteilten Künstlichen Intelligenz, den Wirtschaftswissenschaften oder der Spieltheorie untersucht. Ein zentrales Ergebnis dieser Forschung ist, dass es keinen für alle Situationen geeigneten Koordinationsmechanismus gibt. Es stellt sich also die Aufgabe aus den zahlreichen vorgeschlagenen Koordinationsmechanismen eine Auswahl zu treffen, die für die aktuelle Situation den geeigneten Mechanismus identifiziert. Für die Auswahl eines solchen Mechanismus existiert bisher jedoch kein strukturiertes Verfahren für die Entwicklung von verteilten Systems und insbesondere im Bereich der Agenten orientierter Softwareentwicklung. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wird genau hierfür ein Verfahren vorgestellt, der ECo-Prozess. Mit Hilfe dieses Prozesses wird der Auswahlprozess in die folgenden Schritte eingeteilt: • Modellierung der Problemstellung und des relevante Kontextes • Formulierung von Anforderungen an einen Koordinationsmechanismus (coordination requirements) • Auswahl/Entwurf eines Koordinationsmechanismuses • Implementierung des Koordinationsverfahrens • Evaluation des Koordinationsverfahrens Diese Schritte werden im Rahmen der vorliegenden Arbeit detailliert beschrieben. Die Modellierung der Problemstellung stellt dabei den ersten Schritt dar, um die Problemstellung analytisch zugänglich zu machen. Koordinationsverfahren müssen die Gegebenheiten, den Kontext und die Domäne, in der sie angewendet werden sollen hinreichend berücksichtigen um anwendbar zu sein. Dieses kann über Anforderungen an den Koordinationsprozess formalisiert werden. Der von den Anforderungen getrieben Auswahlprozess ist ein Kernstück der hier vorgestellten Arbeit. Durch die Formulierung der Anforderungen und der Annotation eines Koordinationsmechanismus bezüglich der erfüllten und nicht erfüllten Anforderungen werden die Motive für Designentscheidungen dieses Verfahren expliziert. Wenn Koordinationsverfahren anhand dieser Anforderungen klassifiziert werden können, ist es weiterhin möglich den Auswahlprozess (unabhängig vom ECo-Ansatz) zu vereinfachen und zu beschleunigen. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wird eine Klassifikation von Koordinationsansätzen anhand von allgemeinen Kriterien vorgestellt, die die Identifikation von geeigneten Kandidaten erleichtern. Diese Kandidaten können dann detaillierter untersucht werden. Dies wurde in den vorgestellten Fallstudien erfolgreich demonstriert. Für die Unterstützung der Implementierung eines Koordinationsansatzes wird in dieser Arbeit zusätzlich der CoPS Prozess vorgeschlagen. Der CoPS Prozess erlaubt einen ganzheitlichen systematischen Ansatz für den Entwurf und die Implementierung eines Koordinationsverfahrens. Unterstürzt wird der CoPS Prozess durch das CoPS Framework, das die Implementierung erleichtert, indem es als eine Plattform mit Basisfunktionalität eines Agenten bereitstellt, der für die Koordination von Planungssystemen verantwortlich ist. Im Rahmen des CoPS Verfahrens werden Techniken für den Entwurf und die Implementierung von Konversation im Kontext des agenten-orientiertem Software Engineerings ausführlich behandelt. Der Entwurf von Konversationen geht dabei weit über Fragestellung der Formatierung von Nachrichten hinaus, wie dies etwa in den FIPA Standards geregelt ist, und ist für die Implementierung von agentenbasierten Systemen im Allgemeinen von Bedeutung. Die Funktionsweise des ECo-CoPS Ansatzes wird anhand von zweierfolgreich durchgeführten Fallstudien aus dem betriebswirtschaftlichen Kontext vorgestellt

Real-time optimization of an integrated production-inventory-distribution problem.

In today\u27s competitive business environment, companies face enormous pressure and must continuously search for ways to design new products, manufacture and distribute them in an efficient and effective fashion. After years of focusing on reduction in production and operation costs, companies are beginning to look into distribution activities as the last frontier for cost reduction. In addition, an increasing number of companies, large and small, are focusing their efforts on their core competencies which are critical to survive. This results in a widespread practice in industry that companies outsource one or more than one logistics functions to third party logistics providers. By using such logistics expertise, they can obtain a competitive advantage both in cost and time efficiency, because the third party logistics companies already have the equipment, system and experience and are ready to help to their best efforts. In this dissertation, we developed an integrated optimization model of production, inventory and distribution with the goal to coordinate important and interrelated decisions related to production schedules, inventory policy and truckload allocation. Because outsourcing logistics functions to third party logistics providers is becoming critical for a company to remain competitive in the market place; we also included an important decision of selecting carriers with finite truckload and drivers for both inbound and outbound shipments in the model. The integrated model is solved by modified Benders decomposition which solves the master problem by a genetic algorithm. Computational results on test problems of various sizes are provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed solution methodology. We also apply this proposed algorithm on a real distribution problem faced by a large national manufacturer and distributor. It shows that such a complex distribution network with 22 plants, 7 distribution centers, 8 customer zones, 9 products, 16 inbound and 16 outbound shipment carriers in a 12-month planning period can be redesigned within 33 hours. In recent years, multi-agent simulation has been a preferred approach to solve logistics and distribution problems, since these problems are autonomous, distributive, complex, heterogeneous and decentralized in nature and they require extensive intelligent decision making. Another important part in this dissertation involved a development of an agent-based simulation model to cooperate with the optimal solution given by the optimization model. More specifically, the solution given by the optimization model can be inputted as the initial condition of the agent-based simulation model. The agent-based simulation model can incorporate many other factors to be considered in the real world, but optimization cannot handle these as needed. The agent-based simulation model can also incorporate some dynamics we may encounter in the real operations, and it can react to these dynamics in real time. Various types of entities in the entire distribution system can be modeled as intelligent agents, such as suppliers, carriers and customers. In order to build the simulation model more realistic, a sealed bid multiunit auction with an introduction of three parameters a, ß and y is well designed. With the help of these three parameters, each agent makes a better decision in a simple and fast manner, which is the key to realizing real-time decision making. After building such a multi-agent system with agent-based simulation approach, it supports more flexible and comprehensive modeling capabilities which are difficult to realize in a general optimization model. The simulation model is tested and validated on an industrial-sized problem. Numerical results of the agent-based simulation model suggest that with appropriate setting of three parameters the model can precisely represent the preference and interest of different decision makers

Collaborative transportation for small and medium enterprises for advancing the emerging countries

International audienceFood needs are growing rapidly with the growing population especially in case of developing countries where food preservation technology is not that much mature or even not available. It results enormous increase in prices of food commodities and higher growth rate of inflation each year. Additionally population is dispersed in the country in form of very small and large cities. Similarly, food grown in the country is also dispersed in the different areas of the country. This is highly necessary to use effective modes of transport, to collect food from these regions and distribute it with equilibrium in all the human living regions. Additionally to reduce the wastage of food in case of food shortage especially in some part of the African continent region. Food products and ingredients found and grown in one region are transported to another region, making it possible to use and eat them where they are not found. Small farmers or food producers to reach the scattered areas to distribute their products at time and cost effectively could not purchase their own vehicles, ships or planes to transport their goods. These companies contact third party transporter companies to transport their products, same as a courier company. These companies are called Third Party Logistics enterprises (3PL). These 3PL enterprises take the responsibility of performing logistics functions entirely or partially of an organization. They manage their own fleet of vehicles which drive in a certain and region. The diversity of clients due to different kind of product distribution (fresh, frozen etc.), distance from production companies and distribution cities, the size of the transport network make it even very complicated for a 3PL transporter to manage transportation planning and make efficient use of their resources. Moreover a single 3PL transporter also covers a limited region; they must collaborate with other 3PL enterprises which operate in other regions to make the delivery of the products to faraway locations. Complexity of transportation planning increases further in case of multiple 3PLE enterprises collaborating for the fulfilment of a transport order(s). The objective of this paper is to present a collaborative and distributed model for transportation planning activities aimed at better utilize transport resources by grouping several orders of transports for each effective displacement

Enhancing the Supply Chain Performance by Integrating Simulated and Physical Agents into Organizational Information Systems

As the business environment gets more complicated, organizations must be able to respond to the business changes and adjust themselves quickly to gain their competitive advantages. This study proposes an integrated agent system, called SPA, which coordinates simulated and physical agents to provide an efficient way for organizations to meet the challenges in managing supply chains. In the integrated framework, physical agents coordinate with inter-organizations\' physical agents to form workable business processes and detect the variations occurring in the outside world, whereas simulated agents model and analyze the what-if scenarios to support physical agents in making decisions. This study uses a supply chain that produces digital still cameras as an example to demonstrate how the SPA works. In this example, individual information systems of the involved companies equip with the SPA and the entire supply chain is modeled as a hierarchical object oriented Petri nets. The SPA here applies the modified AGNES data clustering technique and the moving average approach to help each firm generalize customers\' past demand patterns and forecast their future demands. The amplitude of forecasting errors caused by bullwhip effects is used as a metric to evaluate the degree that the SPA affects the supply chain performance. The experimental results show that the SPA benefits the entire supply chain by reducing the bullwhip effects and forecasting errors in a dynamic environment.Supply Chain Performance Enhancement; Bullwhip Effects; Simulated Agents; Physical Agents; Dynamic Customer Demand Pattern Discovery

The role of similarity measurement in an agent-based supplier selection framework

Similarity measurement is a critical component in any case-based reasoning (CBR) system. CBR is a superior technique for solving new problems based on previous experiences. Main assumption in CBR relies on the hypothesis that states similar problems should have similar solutions. This paper describes a comparative analysis on several commonly used similarity measures (Canberra, Clark, and Normalized Euclidean distance) in retrieving phase of the case-based reasoning approach to facilitate supplier selection. In addition, the proposed agent-based supplier selection framework was designed to use customer’s defined weights to evaluate the price, volume, quality grade, and delivery date of supply materials, and also provide them with alternative products which are closest to their first order if it was out of stock. Finally, based on the proposed framework, a numerical example of the used approach is illustrated

Collaborative and adaptive supply chain planning

Dans le contexte industriel d'aujourd'hui, la compétitivité est fortement liée à la performance de la chaîne d'approvisionnement. En d'autres termes, il est essentiel que les unités d'affaires de la chaîne collaborent pour coordonner efficacement leurs activités de production, de façon a produire et livrer les produits à temps, à un coût raisonnable. Pour atteindre cet objectif, nous croyons qu'il est nécessaire que les entreprises adaptent leurs stratégies de planification, que nous appelons comportements, aux différentes situations auxquelles elles font face. En ayant une connaissance de l'impact de leurs comportements de planification sur la performance de la chaîne d'approvisionnement, les entreprises peuvent alors adapter leur comportement plutôt que d'utiliser toujours le même. Cette thèse de doctorat porte sur l'adaptation des comportements de planification des membres d'une même chaîne d'approvisionnement. Chaque membre pouvant choisir un comportement différent et toutes les combinaisons de ces comportements ayant potentiellement un impact sur la performance globale, il est difficile de connaître à l'avance l'ensemble des comportements à adopter pour améliorer cette performance. Il devient alors intéressant de simuler les différentes combinaisons de comportements dans différentes situations et d'évaluer les performances de chacun. Pour permettre l'utilisation de plusieurs comportements dans différentes situations, en utilisant la technologie à base d'agents, nous avons conçu un modèle d'agent à comportements multiples qui a la capacité d'adapter son comportement de planification selon la situation. Les agents planificateurs ont alors la possibilité de se coordonner de façon collaborative pour améliorer leur performance collective. En modélisant les unités d'affaires par des agents, nous avons simulé avec la plateforme de planification à base d'agents de FORAC des agents utilisant différents comportements de planification dits de réaction et de négociation. Cette plateforme, développée par le consortium de recherche FORAC de l'Université Laval, permet de simuler des décisions de planification et de planifier les opérations de la chaîne d'approvisionnement. Ces comportements de planification sont des métaheurisciques organisationnelles qui permettent aux agents de générer des plans de production différents. La simulation est basée sur un cas illustrant la chaîne d'approvisionnement de l'industrie du bois d'œuvre. Les résultats obtenus par l'utilisation de multiples comportements de réaction et de négociation montrent que les systèmes de planification avancée peuvent tirer avantage de disposer de plusieurs comportements de planification, en raIson du contexte dynamique des chaînes d'approvisionnement. La pertinence des résultats de cette thèse dépend de la prémisse que les entreprises qui adapteront leurs comportements de planification aux autres et à leur environnement auront un avantage concurrentiel important sur leurs adversaires

Semantic transportation planning for food products supply chain ecosystem within difficult geographic zones

Purpose – In difficult geographical zones (mountain, intra-cities areas, etc.), many shippers, from small and medium enterprises to individuals, may demand delivery of different food products ( fresh, refrigerated, frozen, etc.) in small quantities. On the other side, carrier companies wish to use their vehicles optimally. Taking into account the perishability constraints (short-shelflife, temperature limits, etc.) of the transported food products and environmentalconstraints (pollution, carbon impact) while consolidatingmultiple kinds of food products to use vehicles optimally is not achieved by current transportation planning solutions. The purpose of this paper is to present an interoperable solution of a marketplace, formed by shippers and carriers, dedicated to the schedule of food transport orders. Design/methodology/approach – This transportation planning system named Interoperable-Pathfinder, Order, Vehicle, Environment and Supervisor (I-POVES) is an interoperable multi-agent system, based on the SCEP (supervisor, customer, environment and producer) model (Archimede and Coudert, 2001). Ontologies are developed to create the planning marketplace comprising demands and offers from different sources (multiple shippers and carriers). Findings – A hierarchy ontology for food products. A transporter system ontology. A global ontology that contains all shared concepts used by local ontologies of both shippers and carriers. I-POVES an interoperable model, which facilitates collaboration between carriers and their shippers through its active agents. Practical implications – I-POVES is tested on a case study from the TECCAS Poctefa project, comprising transport and food companies from both sides of the Pyrenees (France and Spain). Originality/value – There has been much work in the literature on the delivery of products, but very few on the delivery of food products. Work related to delivery of food products focuses mostly on timely delivery for avoiding its wastage. In this paper, constraints related to food products and to environment (pollution and carbon impact) of transport resources are taken into account while planning the delivery

An Internet of Things based framework to enhance just-in-time manufacturing

Just-in-time manufacturing is a main manufacturing strategy used to enhance manufacturers’ competitiveness through inventory and lead time reduction. Implementing just-in-time manufacturing has a number of challenges, for example, effective, frequent and real-time information sharing and communication between different functional departments, responsive action for adjusting the production plan against the continually changing manufacturing situation. Internet of Things technology has the potential to be used for capturing desired data and information from production environment in real time, and the collected data and information can be used for adjusting production schedules corresponding to the changing production environment. This article presents an Internet of Things based framework to support responsive production planning and scheduling in just-in-time manufacturing. The challenges of implementing just-in-time manufacturing are identified first and then an Internet of Things based solution is proposed to address these challenges. A framework to realise the proposed Internet of Things solution is developed and its implementation plan is suggested based on a case study on automotive harness parts manufacturing. This research contributes knowledge to the field of just-in-time manufacturing by incorporating the Internet-of-Things technology to improve the connectivity of production chains and responsive production scheduling capability

A simulation platform prototype for evaluating alternative scenarios of members integration in virtual organizations

Companies are facing growing challenges motivated by globalization. A globalized market means that the number of companies with which they will need to compete to maintain or enlarge their market share is increased. Additionally, it also brings greater opportunities to conquer new markets and increase existing market shares, since the geographical, political and economical boundaries are gradually being removed. This paper proposes and illustrates the use of a platform prototype for enabling the evaluation and selection of attractive members for being included as members in a virtual organization. An extended simulation study is described and results obtained presented which show advantage of a used dynamic evaluation and selection model, based on a varying set of criteria.This work has been supported by COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio