A DYNAMIC SCHEDULING HOLON FOR MANUFACTURING ORDERS

This paper deals with a new architecture and negotiation protocol for the dynamic scheduling of manufacturing systems. The architecture is b ased on two paradigms: multi-agent systems and holonic systems. The ma in contribution in the architecture is the existence of holons represe nting tasks together with holons representing resources. The well-know n contract net protocol has been adapted to handle temporal constraint s and to deal with conflicts. It also deals with conflict situations, namely with the case of the 'indecision problem'. This approach assume s that deadlines are the most important constraints to consider. (C) 1 998 Chapman & Hall.