TABLE OF CONTENTS This chapter focuses on the application of agent-based modeling and agent technology to the three main activities characterizing manufacturing production: planning, scheduling, and control. The objective is to highlight the reasons that make an agent-based approach appropriate for each of these activities. The chapter covers these areas in 10 main sections:
The first three sections deal with the general role of planning, scheduling, and control in manufacturing, underlining the relevance of an integrated perspective.
The next three sections recall the necessary concepts relevant to planning, scheduling, and control in manufacturing, providing some key topics about non agent-based approaches, which throughout this chapter will be referred to as classic or conventional approaches.
The section titled Agent-Based Applications in Manufacturing Planning and Scheduling summarizes the main features of some of the most outstanding multiagent approaches to planning and scheduling reported in the literature, highlighting the strict integration that agent technology provides for the two phases.
The next section begins the wrap-up of the chapter by showing how agent-based control in manufacturing can be viewed as a natural extension of planning and scheduling.
The section titled Planning, Scheduling and Control in the PS-Bikes shows how some previously introduced concepts can be applied to the PS-Bikes case study, together with an original multiagent scheduling approach developed by the authors.
The final section draws conclusions.
