A Collaborative Framework between a Scheduling System and a Holonic Manufacturing Execution System

This paper presents developments on a collaborative framework between a centralized manufacturing scheduling system (SS) and a decentralized manufacturing execution system (MES). The paper intends to integrate such systems with the aim of reducing the existing gap between detailed manufacturing scheduling systems and lower level systems, like MESs. Moreover, the framework exploits the benefits of each specialized technology and complements their capabilities in order to collaborate at runtime. The SS is based on constraint programming (CP) technology, while the holonic MES or HMES implements the PROSA reference architecture and applies the delegate multi-agent system pattern (D-MAS). The scheduling system generates a good quality schedule, which execution is performed by the HMES. In turn, the HMES requires services from the SS in order to update the schedule. The paper also shows the impact that disruptive events have on the execution performance. Experimental results have shown a trade-off between efficiency and stability metrics.

ISBN:978-3-642-35852-4

Jaar van publicatie:2013