scholarly journals Cooperative Product Agents to Improve Manufacturing System Flexibility: A Model-Based Decision Framework

Author(s):  
Ilya Kovalenko ◽  
Efe Balta ◽  
Dawn Tilbury ◽  
Kira Barton

Due to the advancements in manufacturing system technology and the ever-increasing demand for personalized products, there is a growing desire to improve the flexibility of manufacturing systems. Multi-agent control is one strategy that has been proposed to address this challenge. The multi-agent control strategy relies on the decision making and cooperation of a number of intelligent software agents to control and coordinate various components on the shop floor. One of the most important agents for this control strategy is the product agent, which is the decision maker for a single part in the manufacturing system. To improve the flexibility and adaptability of the product agent and its control strategy, this work proposes a direct and active cooperation framework for the product agent. The directly and actively cooperating product agent can identify and actively negotiate scheduling constraints with other agents in the system. A new modeling formalism, based on priced timed automata, and an optimization-based decision making strategy are proposed as part of the framework. Two simulation case studies showcase how direct and active cooperation can be used to improve the flexibility and performance of manufacturing systems.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilya Kovalenko ◽  
Efe Balta ◽  
Dawn Tilbury ◽  
Kira Barton

Due to the advancements in manufacturing system technology and the ever-increasing demand for personalized products, there is a growing desire to improve the flexibility of manufacturing systems. Multi-agent control is one strategy that has been proposed to address this challenge. The multi-agent control strategy relies on the decision making and cooperation of a number of intelligent software agents to control and coordinate various components on the shop floor. One of the most important agents for this control strategy is the product agent, which is the decision maker for a single part in the manufacturing system. To improve the flexibility and adaptability of the product agent and its control strategy, this work proposes a direct and active cooperation framework for the product agent. The directly and actively cooperating product agent can identify and actively negotiate scheduling constraints with other agents in the system. A new modeling formalism, based on priced timed automata, and an optimization-based decision making strategy are proposed as part of the framework. Two simulation case studies showcase how direct and active cooperation can be used to improve the flexibility and performance of manufacturing systems.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5495
Author(s):  
Mihai Andronie ◽  
George Lăzăroiu ◽  
Roxana Ștefănescu ◽  
Cristian Uță ◽  
Irina Dijmărescu

With growing evidence of the operational performance of cyber-physical manufacturing systems, there is a pivotal need for comprehending sustainable, smart, and sensing technologies underpinning data-driven decision-making processes. In this research, previous findings were cumulated showing that cyber-physical production networks operate automatically and smoothly with artificial intelligence-based decision-making algorithms in a sustainable manner and contribute to the literature by indicating that sustainable Internet of Things-based manufacturing systems function in an automated, robust, and flexible manner. Throughout October 2020 and April 2021, a quantitative literature review of the Web of Science, Scopus, and ProQuest databases was performed, with search terms including “Internet of Things-based real-time production logistics”, “sustainable smart manufacturing”, “cyber-physical production system”, “industrial big data”, “sustainable organizational performance”, “cyber-physical smart manufacturing system”, and “sustainable Internet of Things-based manufacturing system”. As research published between 2018 and 2021 was inspected, and only 426 articles satisfied the eligibility criteria. By taking out controversial or ambiguous findings (insufficient/irrelevant data), outcomes unsubstantiated by replication, too general material, or studies with nearly identical titles, we selected 174 mainly empirical sources. Further developments should entail how cyber-physical production networks and Internet of Things-based real-time production logistics, by use of cognitive decision-making algorithms, enable the advancement of data-driven sustainable smart manufacturing.


10.6036/9917 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 96 (5) ◽  
pp. 455-459
Author(s):  
MAHDI NADERI ◽  
ANTONIO FERNÁNDEZ ULLOA ◽  
JOSÉ ENRIQUE ARES GÓMEZ ◽  
GUSTAVO PELÁEZ LOURIDO

Despite the growing importance that is being given to the concepts of sustainability in many areas, not only in industry but also in the economy and public opinion in general, until now, most research has focused, practically, on the analysis of the concepts, but has not addressed, in a comprehensive way, its impact in decision making probably due to the complex relations of interdependence between its different aspects. In this context, MAPSAM (Methodology for the Assessment of Sustainability in Manufacturing Processes and Systems) was created to help the decision-making process, allowing a conscious and transparent assessment by administrators and managers at the different levels of the structure of companies and organisations. This article explains its development and application in a "job shop" type manufacturing system with an approach that allows the integration of economic, environmental and social criteria. MAPSAM is based on the use of various techniques and tools to quantify the importance of each aspect of sustainability and it has been applied in other production environments, being implemented in different systems, analysing their ease of use and evaluating their behaviour. The objective is to show how it helps to make operational, tactical and strategic decisions in the management on these type of manufacturing companies and, specifically, in this contribution we want to highlight its versatility and applicability, by validating it in a certain type of layout. With this new application, MAPSAM increases its possibilities as an innovative instrument that allows companies to make conscious and sustainable decisions in order to be more efficient, fair, supportive and respectful of the environment. Keywords: Manufacturing System, Simulation, Decision Support, Sustainable Production, Decision-Making


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 447-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Om Ji Shukla ◽  
Gunjan Soni ◽  
G. Anand

Purpose – In the current customer-driven market, the manufacturers have to be highly responsive and flexible to deliver a variety of products. Hence, to meet this dynamic and uncertain market changes, the production system, which enables the manufacturing of such variety of products should be able to meet such diverse, dynamic changes. Hence, selecting a suitable manufacturing system is a key strategic decision for today's manufacturing organization, which needs to survive in these uncertain market conditions. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to present a decision-making model for selecting the best manufacturing system and also discuss the criteria on the basis of which the management can select the same. Design/methodology/approach – A case of small- and medium-sized company is presented, in which the management is deciding to establish a most suitable manufacturing system. To supplement this, a suitable multi-criteria decision-making model (MCDM), the grey approach is used to analyze manufacturing system alternatives based on various decision criteria to arrive a comparative ranking. Findings – An extensive analysis of grey-based decision-making model described grey decision matrix, grey normalized decision matrix, grey weighted normalized decision matrix and grey possibility degrees for three alternatives revealed that lean manufacturing systems was found to be the most suitable manufacturing system among three alternatives for a given case. Research limitations/implications – The same study can be extended by including sub-criteria with main criteria for selection of manufacturing system by utilizing two MCDM techniques such as AHP or ANP with Grey approach. Practical implications – The Grey approach has been discussed in a detailed way and it will be useful for the managers to use this approach as a tool for solving similar type of decision-making problems in their organizations in the future. Originality/value – Although, the problem of selecting a suitable manufacturing system is often addressed both in practice and research, very few reports are available in the literature of Grey-based decision models that demonstrated its application for selecting a suitable manufacturing systems.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (21) ◽  
pp. 6333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fengjia Yao ◽  
Bugra Alkan ◽  
Bilal Ahmad ◽  
Robert Harrison

Autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs) are driverless material handling systems used for transportation of pallets and line side supply of materials to provide flexibility and agility in shop-floor logistics. Scheduling of shop-floor logistics in such systems is a challenging task due to their complex nature associated with the multiple part types and alternate material transfer routings. This paper presents a decision support system capable of supporting shop-floor decision-making activities during the event of manufacturing disruptions by automatically adjusting both AGV and machine schedules in Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMSs). The proposed system uses discrete event simulation (DES) models enhanced by the Internet-of-Things (IoT) enabled digital integration and employs a nonlinear mixed integer programming Genetic Algorithm (GA) to find near-optimal production schedules prioritising the just-in-time (JIT) material delivery performance and energy efficiency of the material transportation. The performance of the proposed system is tested on the Integrated Manufacturing and Logistics (IML) demonstrator at WMG, University of Warwick. The results showed that the developed system can find the near-optimal solutions for production schedules subjected to production anomalies in a negligible time, thereby supporting shop-floor decision-making activities effectively and rapidly.


Author(s):  
Harold R. Chamorro ◽  
Camilo Pazmino ◽  
David Paez ◽  
Fernando Jimenez ◽  
Josep M. Guerrero ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Wesley Ellgass ◽  
Nathan Holt ◽  
Hector Saldana-Lemus ◽  
Julian Richmond ◽  
Ali Vatankhah Barenji ◽  
...  

With the developments and applications of the advanced information technologies such as cloud computing, internet of thing, artificial intelligence and virtual reality, industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing era are coming. In this respect, one of the specific challenges is to achieve a connection of physical resources on the shop floor with virtual resources, for real-time response, real time process optimization, and simulation, which is merged by big data problem. In this respect, Digital Twins (DT) concept is introduced as a key technology, which includes physical resources, virtual resources, service system, and digital twin data. DT considers current condition of physical resource and prediction of future events to make a responsive decision. However, due to the complexity of building a digital equivalent in virtual space to its physical counterpart, very little applications have been developed with this purpose, especially in the industrial manufacturing area. Therefore, the types of data and technology required to build the DT for a manufacturing system are presented in this work, trying to develop a framework of DT based manufacturing system, which is supported by the virtual reality for virtualization of physical resources.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 280-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ram Prakash ◽  
Sandeep Singhal ◽  
Ashish Agarwal

Purpose The research paper presents analysis and prioritization of barriers influencing the improvement in the effectiveness of manufacturing system. The purpose of this paper is to develop an integrated fuzzy-based multi-criteria decision-making (F-MCDM) framework to assist management of the case company in the selection of most effective manufacturing system. The framework helps in prioritizing the manufacturing systems on the basis of their effectiveness affected by the barriers. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, on the basis of experts’ opinion, five barriers have been identified in a brain-storming session. The problem of prioritization of manufacturing system is a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem and hence is solved by using the F-MCDM approach using dominance matrix. Findings Manufacturing systems’ effectiveness for Indian industries is influenced by barriers. The prioritization of manufacturing systems depends on qualitative factor decision-making criteria. Among the manufacturing systems, leagile manufacturing system is given the highest priority followed by lean manufacturing system, agile manufacturing system, flexible manufacturing system and cellular manufacturing system. Research limitations/implications The selection of an appropriate manufacturing system plays a vital role for sustainable growth of the manufacturing company. In the present work, barriers which influence the effectiveness of manufacturing system have been identified. On the basis of degree of influence of barriers on the effectiveness of the manufacturing system, five alternative manufacturing systems are prioritized. The framework will help the management of the case company to take reasonable decision for the adoption of the appropriate manufacturing system. Practical implications The results of the research work are very useful for the manufacturing companies interested in analyzing the alternative manufacturing systems on the basis of their effectiveness and their sensitivity toward various barriers. The management of Indian manufacturing company will take decision to adopt a manufacturing system whose effectiveness is least sensitive toward barriers. Effectiveness of such manufacturing system will improve with time without having retardation due to barriers. With improved effectiveness of the manufacturing system, the manufacturing company would be able to survive with global competition. The result of the present work is based on the inputs from the case company and may vary for the other manufacturing company. In the present work, only five alternative manufacturing systems and five barriers have been considered. To obtain the better result, MCDM approach with more number of alternative manufacturing systems and barriers might be considered. Originality/value The research work is based on the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process framework and on the case study conducted by the authors. The work carried out is original in nature and based on the real-life case study.


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