Using Mobile Agents to Schedule a Manufacturing Chain on the Internet

Abstract

This paper is mainly concerned with putting forward a novel manufacturing chain model and a new scheduling model for manufacturing chains in networked manufacturing systems. The manufacturing chain model is formed by adopting extensive activity-network-diagram workflow technique. The scheduling model is built upon mobile agent technologies, e.g. aglets. It includes two different scheduling levels. One is defined as the process scheduling which implements the scheduling logic for distributive manufacturing sites or manufacturing cells based on a specific manufacturing task. The other is the node scheduling which realizes the scheduling logic for manufacturing equipments based on specific working procedures or working paces. High-level scheduling aglet templates are created to support the operations at the levels of manufacturing sites or manufacturing cells. To complement, low-level scheduling aglet templates are created to support the operations such as working procedures or working paces over manufacturing equipments. As a result, the model is able to deal with dynamic manufacturing chains and their scheduling.