TABLE OF CONTENTS In assessing the benefits of agent-based scheduling in terms of solution quality one should notice that solution quality strongly depends on the scheduling techniques used by individual agents for scheduling their tasks. Also note that each subsequent sub-stage in a negotiation process gives a better output than its previous sub-stage. Thus, the longer the negotiation process lasts the better solutions will be obtained. Next, lower and upper bound estimates on makespan are developed.
Suppose a product with corresponding digraph is going to be schedule on a { m, q} manufacturing system.
Let P 1, P 2, , P n be all part nodes in the digraph, and A 1, A 2, , A N be all assembly nodes in the digraph (see example in Figure 2). The following notations are introduced:
k = number of agents or decomposed sub-digraphs.
n i = number of part nodes in the sub-digraph corresponding to the sub-problem handled by agent a i.
N i = number of assembly nodes in the sub-digraph corresponding to the sub-problem handled by agent a i.
P l 1, P l 2, , P l n i are part nodes in sub-digraph corresponding to the sub-problem handled by agent a i.
A l 1, A l 2, , A l N i are assembly nodes in sub-digraph corresponding to the sub-problem...
