Self-organization in a distributed manufacturing system based on constraint logic programming

The paper addresses the problem of self-organization of manufacturing syste ms. The objective is to overcome the rigidity of conventional hierarchical structures and to introduce structures that are able to adapt to a dynamic environment. The presented approach is based on the concept of Complex Adap tive Manufacturing Systems. It is characterized by a decomposition of manuf acturing objectives and allocation of tasks to work systems as autonomous b uilding blocks in a dynamic environment. The allocation is based on a marke t mechanism that enables self-organization and optimization of a manufactur ing system by evaluation and selection among competing work systems. The ap proach is implemented in the Constraint Logic Programming environment Eclip se and validated in a simulation experiment.