MULTI-AGENT-BASED COOPERATIVE COEVOLUTIONARY MODEL FOR DYNAMIC SHOP FLOOR RECONFIGURATION CONSIDERING PROCESS PLANNING

摘要

In order to react to volatile market demand and uncertain production objectives, distributed manufacturing resources have to be dynamically configured. However, the dynamics of process planning and shop floor information makes shop floor reconfiguration a challenging problem. The shortcomings of the existing research on shop floor reconfiguration are first discussed. Then a multi-agent-based framework for dynamic shop floor reconfiguration is presented, and a mathematical programming model taking process planning into consideration is constructed as well. To coordinate the resource assignment among agents, a cooperative coevolutionary algorithm is also put forward to find the optimal solution of the reconfiguration model. The advantages of the proposed model are using combined multi-agent and mathematical programming method to decompose and optimize the problem of reconfiguration and considering alternative process plans. Furthermore, a prototype system for dynamic shop reconfiguration is developed. The results of this research will help solve the problem of shop floor reconfiguration with complex and dynamic interactive structure.