Currency-based Iterative Multi-Agent Bidding Mechanism Based on Genetic Algorithm

This paper introduces a multi-agent system which i nt egrates process planning and production scheduling, in order to increase the fle xibility of manufacturing systems in coping with rapid changes in dynamic market and dealing with internal uncertainties such as machine breakdown or resources shortage. This system consists of various autonomous agents, each of which has t he capability of communicating with one another and making decisions based on it s knowledge and if necessary on information provided by other agents. Machine ag ents which represent the machines play an important role in the system in that t hey negotiate with each other to bid for jobs. An iterative bidding mechanism is proposed to facilitate the process of job assignment to machines and handle the negotiation between agents. This mechanism enables near optimal process plans a nd production schedules to be produced concurrently, so that dynamic changes in the market can be coped with at a minimum cost, and the utilisation of manufactu ring resources can be optimised. In addition, a currency scheme with currency-l ike metrics is proposed to encourage or prohibit machine agents to put forward t heir bids for the jobs announced. The values of the metrics are adjusted iterati vely so as to obtain an integrated plan and schedule which result in the minimum total production cost while satisfying products due dates. To deal with the optimisation problem, i.e. to what degree and how the currencies should be adj usted in each iteration, a genetic algorithm (GA) is developed. Comparisons are made between GA approach and simulated annealing (SA) optimisation technique.

This paper introduces a multi-agent system which i nt egrates process planning and production scheduling, in order to increase the fle xibility of manufacturing systems in coping with rapid changes in dynamic market and dealing with internal uncertainties such as machine breakdown or resources shortage. This system consists of various autonomous agents, each of which has t he capability of communicating with one another and making decisions based on it s knowledge and if necessary on information provided ...