Multi-agent model to control production system: A reactive and emergent approach by cooperation and competition between agents

Abstract

Face to strong competitive market, current companies tend to new methods of production, switching from a logic of «projected planning» to a logic of “Just in time”. In this context, the system that allows controlling the production has to be a modular, flexible and reactive system. The hierarchized and classical approaches don’t permit any more to take into account the complexity linked to such a system. That’s why, we propose an approach, which has reactive, distributive, and emergent properties to control the system of production, based on multi-agent system principles. After having introduced the context and reasoning work, we describe the different parts of our multi-agent model. Lastly, we illustrate this approach on a practical example of production cell.