Skip to main content
Log in

Locally perceiving hard global constraints in multi-agent scheduling

  • Published:
Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

We propose how to model enterprise facilities (like factories, warehouses, etc.) in a multi-product production/distribution network, capacity management at those facilities, and scheduling agents which act as enterprise managers, taking decisions that affect the available capacity. A coordination mechanism through which scheduling agents can locally perceive hard global temporal constraints is also proposed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Arnold, J., Dudenhausen, H.-M. and Halmosi, H. (1997) Production Planning and Control within Supply Chains, Fraunhofer Institute Manufacturing Engineering and Automation, Stuttgart, Germany (ESPRIT project 20544, X-CITTIC).

    Google Scholar 

  • Blazewicz, J., Ecker, K. H., Schmidt, G. and Weglarz, J. (1994) Scheduling in Computer and Manufacturing Systems, Springer Verlag, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brucker, P. (1998) Scheduling Algorithms, Springer Verlag, Berlin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Camarinha-Matos, L. M. and Afsarmanesh, H. (1999) The virtual enterprise concept, in Infrastructures for Virtual Enterprises, Networking Industrial Enterprises, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 3-14.

  • Fox, M. S., Chionglo, J. F. and Barbuceanu, M. (1993) The Integrated Supply Chain Management System, Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, Canada (from the Web site http://www.ie.utoronto. ca/EIL/iscm-descr.html).

    Google Scholar 

  • Graves, S. C., Kan, A. H. G., Rinnooy and Zipkin, P. H. (eds.), (1993) Logistics of Production and Inventory, Handbooks in Operations Research and Management Science, Volume 4, North-Holland, Amsterdam.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hildum, D. W. (1994) Flexibility in a knowledge-based system for solving dynamic resource-constrained scheduling problems, PhD. Thesis/Technical Report 94-77, Multi-Agent Systems Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, University of Massachussetts at Amherst, USA (file HILDUM-T.PS, from the Web site http://centaurus.cs.umass.edu/).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hildum, D.W., Sadeh, N. M., Laliberty, T. J., McA'Nulty, J., Smith, S. F. and Kjenstad, D. (1996) Blackboard Agents for Mixed-Initiative Management of Integrated Process-Planning/Production-Scheduling Solutions across the Supply Chain, Proceedings of the AAAI-97, AAAI Press/The MIT Press, Menlo Park, California, USA, pp. 1000-1005.

    Google Scholar 

  • ICMAS (1996) Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Multi-Agent Systems (Contents), ICMAS-96, AAAI Press, Menlo Park, California.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kjenstad, D. (1998) Coordinated supply chain scheduling, PhD. Thesis, Norwegian University of Science and Technology–NTNU, Department of Production and Quality Engineering, Trondheim, Norway.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klen, A. P., Spinosa, L. M., Rabelo, R. J. and Ferreira, A. C. (1998) Integrated logistics management support system: An advanced coordination functionality for the virtual environment, Proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Intelligent Manufacturing Systems, IMS'98, Gramado, Brasil, November.

  • Morton, T. E. and Pentico, D. W. (1993) Heuristic Scheduling Systems, with Applications to Production Systems and Project Management, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • O'Hare, G. M. P. and Jennings, N. R. (1996) Foundations of Distributed Artificial Intelligence, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1996, New York, USA.

  • O'Neill, H. and Sackett, P. (1996) The Extended Enterprise Reference Framework, Balanced Automation Systems II, 1996, Chapman & Hall, London, UK, pp. 401-412.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parunak, H., Van D. and VanderBok, R. (1998) Modeling the Extended Supply Network, Industrial Technology Locally perceiving hard global constraints 235 Institute (file ISAS98.PDF, from the Web site http:// www.erim.org/cec/sched/schedpubs.htm).

  • Rabelo, R. J. and Camarinha-Matos, L. M. (1996) Towards Agile Scheduling in Extended Enterprise, Balanced Automation Systems II, Luís M. Camarinha-Matos and Hamideh Afsarmanesh (eds.), 1996, Chapman & Hall, London, UK, pp. 413-422.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rabelo, R. J., Camarinha-Matos, L. M. and Afsarmanesh, H. (1998) Multiagent Perspectives to Agile Scheduling, Basys'98–IEEE / IFIP International Conference on Balanced Automation Systems, Prague, Czech Republic, 26-28/08/98.

  • Reis, J., Mamede, N. and O'Neill, H. (1998) Ontologia para um modelo de planeamento e controlo na empresa estendida, Proceedings of the IBERAMIA'98, Ibero-American Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Lisbon, Portugal, October 5-9, 1998, Edições Colibri, Lisbon, Portugal, pp. 43-54 (in Portugese).

    Google Scholar 

  • Reis, J., Mamede, N. and O'Neill, H. (1999) Agent communication for scheduling in the extended enterprise, in Infrastructures for Virtual Enterprises, Proceedings of the IFIP TC5 WG5.3/PRODNET Working Conference on Infrastructures for Virtual Enterprises (PRO-VE'99), Porto, Portugal, October 27-28, 1999, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 1999, pp. 353-364.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reis, J. and Mamede, N. (1999) What's in a node, nodes and agents in logistic networks, Proceedings of the ICEIS'99, 1st International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, Setubal, Portugal, Mars 27-30, pp. 285-291.

  • Sadeh, N. (1994) Micro-oportunistic scheduling: The microboss factory scheduler, Intelligent Scheduling, Morgan Kaufman, 1994, Cap. 4.

  • Smith, R. G. (1988) The contract net protocol: High level communication and control in a distributed problem solver, Readings in Distributed Artificial Intelligence, Morgan Kaufman Publishers, Inc., San Mateo, California, 1988, pp. 357-366.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tate, A., Drabble, B. and Dalton, J. (1995) An Engineer's Approach to the Application of Knowledge Based Planning and Scheduling Techniques to Logistics–The O-Plan Project, Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute, The University of Edinburgh, 14 July 1995.

  • Thomas, D. J. and Griffin, P. M. (1996) Coordinated supply chain management, European Journal of Operational Research, 94, 1996, 1-15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, J. F. (1981) Heuristic techniques for simultaneous scheduling of production and distribution in multiechelon structures: Theory and empirical comparisons, Management Science, 27(3), 336-352.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zweben, M. and Fox, M. S. (1994) Intelligent Scheduling, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., San Francisco, California, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Reis, J., Mamede, N. & O'Neill, H. Locally perceiving hard global constraints in multi-agent scheduling. Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing 12, 223–236 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011212929394

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011212929394

Navigation