Modelling Service Processes as Discrete Event Systems with ARTI-Type Holonic Control Architecture

Abstract

Starting from the generic, activity-oriented Service System lifecycle model, the paper considers the service as a flow of connected activities having a discrete event nature and being formalized as discrete event systems. The service activity flow is optimized off-line by a discrete supervisor and monitored at delivery by a logical controller in a 4-layer embedded digital twin architecture. The supervisor is developed using an ARTI-type holonic architecture in which operant resources (skills, knowledge) are considered intelligent agents acting on operand resources virtualized by their associated digital twins. Because they offer reality-awareness, these virtualized entities form the “intelligent beings” layer of a holonic supervisor with distributed intelligence. The holonic approach offers new perspectives for the service management: optimization and reality awareness.