Cooperative decision-making with scheduler agents

In this study, an Agent-Based Collaborative Scheduling System is represented as a model of scheduling among shops. Agent-based system describes the behaviors of distributed decision maker agents in manufacturing systems. Agents in the system are Production Planning Agent and Shop-Floor Agents. Shop-Floor Agents are semi-autonomous agents so that the degree of autonomy is determined by the Production Planning Agent. The distributed system forming heterogeneous units was designed by hybrid control architecture. The study focuses on constructing an Agent-Based Collaborative Scheduling System that is capable of conducting scheduling negotiations among shop-floor agents. The designed system is capable of scheduling by considering heterogeneous objectives of the shop-floor agents within a collaborative manufacturing environment. Negotiation is co-operative not competitive. Shop-Floor Agents generates collaboratively their schedules. The schedule for the best interest of the system as a whole is selected by the Production Planning Agent.