TY - JOUR
T1 - Modeling and specifications of dynamic agents in fractal manufacturing systems
AU - Ryu, Kwangyeol
AU - Son, Youngjun
AU - Jung, Mooyoung
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported in part by the grant No. 2001-1-31500-005-1 from the Basic Research Program of the Korea Science & Engineering Foundation and the BK 21 Project in 2002. The authors would like to express their gratitude for the support.
Funding Information:
Dr. Youngjun Son is an assistant professor in the Department of Systems and Industrial Engineering at University of Arizona. Dr. Son received his BS degree in industrial engineering with honors from POSTECH in Korea in 1996 and his MS and PhD degrees in industrial and manufacturing engineering from Penn State University in 1998 and 2000, respectively. His research work involves distributed and hybrid simulation for analysis and control of automated manufacturing system and integrated supply-chain. Dr. Son was the Rotary International Multi-Year Ambassadorial Scholar in 1996, the Council of Logistics Management Scholar in 1997, and the recipient of the Graham Endowed Fellowship for Engineering at Penn State University in 1999. He was the faculty advisor for the University of Arizona team that was awarded first place in the eighth IIE/Rockwell Software Student Simulation Contest. He is an associate editor of the International Journal of Modeling and Simulation and a professional member of ASME, IEEE, IIE, INFORMS, and SME.
PY - 2003/10
Y1 - 2003/10
N2 - In order to respond to a rapidly changing manufacturing environment and market, manufacturing systems must be flexible, adaptable, and reusable. The fractal manufacturing system (FrMS) is one of the new manufacturing paradigms that address the need for these characteristics. The FrMS is comprised of a number of "basic components", each of which consists of five functional modules: (1) an observer, (2) an analyzer, (3) an organizer, (4) a resolver, and (5) a reporter. Each of these modules, using agent technology, autonomously cooperates and negotiates with others while processing its own jobs. The resulting architecture has a high degree of self-similarity, one of the main characteristics of a fractal. Despite the many conceptual advantages of the FrMS, it has not been successfully elaborated and implemented to date because of the difficulties involved in doing so. In this paper, the static functions and dynamic activities of each agent are modeled using the unified modeling language (UML). Then, relationships among agents, working mechanisms of each agent, and several fractal-specific characteristics (self-similarity, self-organization, and goal-orientation) are modeled using the UML. Then, a method for dealing with several types of information such as products, orders, and resources in the FrMS is presented. Finally, a preliminary prototype for the FrMS using Aglets™ is presented.
AB - In order to respond to a rapidly changing manufacturing environment and market, manufacturing systems must be flexible, adaptable, and reusable. The fractal manufacturing system (FrMS) is one of the new manufacturing paradigms that address the need for these characteristics. The FrMS is comprised of a number of "basic components", each of which consists of five functional modules: (1) an observer, (2) an analyzer, (3) an organizer, (4) a resolver, and (5) a reporter. Each of these modules, using agent technology, autonomously cooperates and negotiates with others while processing its own jobs. The resulting architecture has a high degree of self-similarity, one of the main characteristics of a fractal. Despite the many conceptual advantages of the FrMS, it has not been successfully elaborated and implemented to date because of the difficulties involved in doing so. In this paper, the static functions and dynamic activities of each agent are modeled using the unified modeling language (UML). Then, relationships among agents, working mechanisms of each agent, and several fractal-specific characteristics (self-similarity, self-organization, and goal-orientation) are modeled using the UML. Then, a method for dealing with several types of information such as products, orders, and resources in the FrMS is presented. Finally, a preliminary prototype for the FrMS using Aglets™ is presented.
KW - Agent technology
KW - Fractal manufacturing system (FrMS)
KW - Modeling
KW - UML
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U2 - 10.1016/S0166-3615(03)00099-X
DO - 10.1016/S0166-3615(03)00099-X
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0042235503
SN - 0166-3615
VL - 52
SP - 161
EP - 182
JO - Computers in Industry
JF - Computers in Industry
IS - 2
ER -