Dealing with intelligence in manufacturing systems

As far as some Intelligent Manufacturing Systems (IMS) are concerned, they are characterised, with more or less intensity, as being composed of intelligent, autonomous and co-operative units. Each unit holds a set of functional, decisional, informational and communication means. We believe that the suitable use of such means (and consequently the IMS means), is directly related with the ability that the units have to carry out decision-making processes, particularly those concerning the co-ordination of tasks in a co-operative way. In such a context, the "intelligence" of the units ascends in significance. This paper proposes an agent-based model as a way to face the lack of understanding and development of some intelligent aspects. Such model is mainly defined based on a modelling paradigm called Agent Oriented Programming Paradigm for Production Systems (AOP3S). Copyright (C) 1998 IFAC.