Smart projects: Multi-Agent solution for aerospace applications

Abstract

Modern aerospace enterprises tend to utilize new advantages of networking organizations for increasing business efficiency. In practice, it requires introduction of a new type of project management stimulating the self-organization and active interaction between actors in order to make coordinated and effective decisions on resource allocation, both within the individual project teams and between the teams. In this paper, we propose the concept of new project management for networking organizations and describe the multi-Agent system 'Smart Projects' for supporting decision-making to maximize productivity and efficiency of human resources. The system supports self-organization of teams with ongoing adaptive planning and communication with employees. This provides more coordinated, flexible and efficient resource utilization in case of unexpected events. The functionality and architecture of Smart Projects system are presented. The comparison with the traditional CIPLEX solution shows that quality of multi-Agent scheduler could be worse up to 15% in batch mode but it is 10 times faster and can work in adaptation mode with smart manual re-work of schedules via negotiations with team members. First results of system application show that developed system can help to increase employees work efficiency - by 10-15%, reduce efforts on tasks scheduling by 3-4 times, reduce the time of response to unexpected events by 2-3 times and increase of the percentage of enterprise projects completed within the budget and time by 15-30%. The prospects for further developments are given.