MULTI AGENT BASED DISTRIBUTED PROCESS PLANNING MANAGEMENT

A distributed process planning system based on autonomous multi agent system to solve a distributed process plan task in a manufacturing environment was presented. A distributed agent based process plan structure was shown to be a viable alternative to hierarchical systems providing real time response to shop floor condition. An outline was done to show how to structure a distributed process plan and how its management may be achieved among manufacturers of parts that form a product. Communication between the agents involved in a distributed process planning was also shown to be important, with the controlling agent having an overall supervision of the plans. Based on the reference model a software tool was developed to realize it.