A Fuzzy Multiagent Approach for Integrated Product Life Cycle Environment

One of the main questions in product life cycle management is how to create the comprehensive framework for autonomous, intelligent decision-making which integrates business and scheduling data. The key problem is to simulate human-like decision-making process to provide agile manufacturing process. Multiagent technologies play a key role in this problem and form an integration platform between human and manufacturing. Also developing distributed control system based on multiagent technologies encounters difficulties, due to ambiguous, vague, or missing information. In the area of intelligent manufacturing systems, there are a number of fuzzy scheduling models presented (Subramaniam et al. in Int J Adv Manuf Technol 16(10): 759-764, [1]; Srinoi et al. in Int J Prod Res 44 (11): 1-21, [2]). These frameworks only deal with manufacturing processes. The research presents multiagent framework that integrates design, manufacturing, and control process in fuzzy area using resource-based approach to agent's interaction. This model is applicable to work with various manufacturing agents in conjunction with different design agents and control systems.