Using a multi-agent system to optimise resource utilisation in multi-site manufacturing facilities
提出一种多智能体系统，通过自主协调和迭代竞价机制，整合跨工厂的工艺规划与生产调度，以优化多站点制造资源的利用效率。
Due to cost economies and better serving the global market, many enterprises expanded their manufacturing environment from a localised, single-site facility to more globalised, multi-site facilities. In order to take advantage of operating multi-site facilities, it is vital to make optimisation decisions of resource utilisation as if these facilities situated across different geographical locations are one integrated facility and take into account of the extended multi-site constraints and variables. This paper proposes a multi-agent system, using its characteristics of autonomy and intelligence, to integrate process planning and production scheduling across different facilities, so as to secure the most efficient and cost-effective plan and schedule to meet the demand. A currency-based agent iterative bidding mechanism is developed to facilitate the co-ordination of agents to achieve the goal. A genetic algorithm is employed to tune the currency values for agent bidding. In this paper, a case study is used for simulation in order to demonstrate the effectiveness and performance of the proposed agent system.