Agent-Based Manufacturing Control for Industry 4.0—Fundamentals and Open Challenges

Abstract

Manufacturing companies face different challenges like rising complexity of their manufacturing operations, the need to quickly develop and produce individualized products, and disruptions of traditional production systems due to changing market conditions, institutional rules, and customer preferences. Thus, there is a significant need for flexible and robust organization and control approaches to cope with these new realities. Industry 4.0 proclaims the automated and decentralized decision-making of products and resources based on digitalization, referring to the automated coordination of job allocation and execution. The decentralized coordination of products and resources also enables the local reaction to disturbances on the shop floor and within supply chains. Thus, to address the abovementioned challenges, Industry 4.0 provides a reference framework to utilize digitally enhanced technologies and recent computational developments like cyber-physical systems, the internet of things, and the smart factory to face these new challenges. Software agents, which are commonly associated with properties such as autonomy, intelligence, and sociability, provide the means to implement these new approaches. However, different aspects of the manufacturing control problem and engineering process, like interoperability, predictability, and business ethics, still need to be addressed.