ETOMA: A multi-agent tool for shop scheduling problems

Abstract

In this paper, we present ETOMA a multi-agent framework dedicated to developing and testing floor shop production schedules. It is applied for both production and joint production and maintenance scheduling as well. ETOMA architecture is composed of three modules: Develop, Test and Blackboard. The first one defines all agents that model the floor shop and their behavior. The second one takes care of testing the scheduling solution by using Taillard benchmarks depending on floor shop types. The considered types are Flowshop, Job-shop and Open-shop. Finally, the Blackboard insures communication between the two predefined modules. ETOMA allows developing and testing any scheduling solution without imposing a specific architecture for agents. Moreover, ETOMA provides at the end of simulations a report composed of a recapitulative table or a curve according to user choice.