Optimize resource utilization at multi-site facilities with agent technology

Abstract

Many enterprises expanded their manufacturing environment from localised, single-site facility to more globalised, multi-site facilities. This paper proposes a multi-agent system, using its characteristics of autonomy and intelligence, to integrate process planning and production scheduling across different facilities, so as to secure the most efficient and cost-effective plan and schedule to meet the demand. A currency-based agent iterative bidding mechanism is developed to facilitate the coordination of agents. A genetic algorithm is employed to tune the currency values for agent bidding. In this paper, a case study is used for simulation in order to demonstrate the effectiveness and performance of the proposed agent system. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2013.