Intelligent agent-based operations management (Innovative technology series)

An intelligent agent is a piece of software that represents one or more (functional or physical) components within a production system (such as a machine or customer order). It controls and plans its own actions as well as co-ordinating its actions with other agents. Intelligent agent-based systems can now be applied to operations management. This book describes the range of application of these systems to practical industrial problems. These include the use, in product modelling, of a concurrent engineering approach in new product development, the formalization of knowledge and product information in intelligent systems, and the classification of configuration modelling requirements for industrial product through generic modelling and configuration. In process modelling, information and knowledge management is applied to the building construction industry, whereas in organisation modelling it is applied to the management and control of distributed systems, real-time distributed control systems and scheduling problems.

A procedure for building product models. Identification of scheduling problems : the DeSAP interface within the e-OCEA environment. Product generic modelling for configuration : requirement analysis and modelling elements. Production management systems. Agent-based agile manufacturing system scheduling. New product development within a concurrent engineering environment : knowledge and software tools. An IEC 61499-based model for reconfiguration of real-time distributed control systems. Intelligent agents for production systems. Index.