Shop-floor control: A multi-agents approach

This paper proposes a novel approach to shop-floor control. In particular, its aim is to solve dynamic production control problems in real-time (due to workstation breakdowns, urgent orders, etc), to automate as much as possible the control process in order to adapt the system to production plan modifications and to rationalize decision-making by a means of strong hierarchical structure. To achieve this, the system is based on a twofold hybrid multi-agent platform. First, control is hierarchically distributed and decision-making is centralized, thus this type of system mediates between centralized and hierarchical architecture types. Centralization allows us to avoid the competition between agents to solve a problem, and hierarchical distribution allows each agent to take care of only one product. Thus, significant gains in terms of response times and reactivity capabilities are obtained thanks to this hybrid approach.