Service Orientation in Holonic and Multi-agent Manufacturing.

Summary Of interest are recent advances and on-going research in holonic and agent-based systems for manufacturing. Industrials are seeking for models and solutions that are not only able to provide efficient overall production performance, but also to face reactively a growing set of unpredicted events. One important research activity in the field focuses on holonic/multi-agent control systems that integrate predictive/proactive and reactive mechanisms into agents/holons. The demand for large scale systems running in complex and even chaotic environments requires the consideration of new paradigms and technologies that provide flexibility, robustness, agility and responsiveness. Holonic systems are, actually by definition, targeting challenges that include coping with the heterogeneous nature of manufacturing systems and their on-line interactive nature in combination with competitive pressures. Multi-agent systems is a suitable approach to address these challenge by offering an alternative way to design control systems, based on the decentralization of control functions over distributed autonomous and cooperative entities. Also, the concepts of Intelligent Product (or active product) and related techniques for product-driven automation are of interest.