Manufacturing over the Internet and into Your Living Room: Perspectives from the AARIA Project

Abstract

Consumer demand and current computational capabilities are driving the manufacturing complex from mass production to mass customization. Current barriers to mass customization have less to do with manufacturing machinery and more to do with the manual and computerized information systems currently used to control that machinery. On-line commerce offers potential benefits and functionality far beyond the automated catalogs that characterize today's cybermarkets. The AARIA project (Autonomous Agents for Rock Island Arsenal) demonstrates how agent technologies and Internet communications can support this expanded vision. This paper outlines new directions that we expect trade on the Internet to take, and shows how AARIA's architecture, scheduling approach, and simulation capabilities support these new directions