A distributed virtual factory in agile manufacturing environment

The impact of alignment between virtual enterprise and information technology on business performance in an agile manufacturing environment

In the Virtual Enterprises (VE) environment, interactions between distributed, heterogeneous computing entities representing different enterprises, people and resources, take place. These interactions, in order to be both syntactic and semantic compatible, need to follow appropriate standards (ontologies) well understood by all the participants. Even for each domain ontology, people may store their data in different structures and use different terms to represent the same concept. This paper focuses on ane effort to create an Ontology-Services Agent to monitor the communication acts taking place in a Multi-agent System. The Ontology-Services Agent provides help in solving the Structural and Semantic Heterogeneity problem, enabling appropriate conversations and making it possible meaningful agreements between agents representing different enterprises and resources in a VE environment.

There is a growing recognition that current manufacturing enterprises must be agile, and the use of virtual enterprise (VE) is becoming increasingly prevalent in recent years. It is a very important and difficult activity in forming a virtual enterprise to select appropriate business partners, because each enterprise considers not only pursuing its profit but also sharing the risk to join the virtual enterprise. At first we propose a VE coalition algorithm based on multi-agent paradigm. Then we develop a computer simulation model to evaluate the proposed method by forming a virtual enterprise through multiple negotiations amongst several potential members in the negotiation domain. Finally, we clarify the coalition dynamism with the negotiation process. The effectiveness of the proposed concept in the agile manufacturing is discussed with several simulation experiments.

Due to the advent of knowledge-based economy and virtual enterprise business model, the enterprises get the knowledge not only from themselves but also from others. In order to support knowledge retrieval in virtual enterprises, the distributed case-based reasoning system (DCBRs) plays an important role for enabling knowledge-driven virtual enterprises. Hence, this paper aims to develop a mechanism for ontology-based distributed case-based reasoning using characteristic of ontology and a proposed multistage algorithm, to effectively support knowledge retrieval within the virtual enterprise environment. This study involves the following tasks: (i) designing an ontology-based distributed case-based reasoning architecture and procedure, (ii) developing techniques related to the ontology-based distributed case-based reasoning, and (iii) implementing an ontology-based distributed case-based reasoning mechanism. In developing techniques related to the ontology-based distributed case-based reasoning, which involves definition and representation of user query model, definition and representation of case model, definition and establishment of case index structure, and development of distributed case retrieval and case adaptation methods.

A single company cannot survive in today's global business environment without collaborating with others. A virtual enterprise is good practice for sharing core resources, experiences and information between companies with the same business goal. Through sharing product information, a company can prevent unnecessary spending in developing similar products that already exist. Although some attempts have been made to facilitate product searches, these methods are typically not suitable for structural product searches under virtual enterprise environments. In this work, an XML (eXtensible Markup Language) based structural product retrieval system for virtual enterprises is proposed to conquer this deficiency. A structural product is first transformed into component strings using a structure parsing algorithm. The structural similarity measurement between a product query and target product is designated and evaluated using a component matching algorithm and fuzzy mode composition. XML technology is used as the data exchange standard so that variant product information can be exchanged smoothly among heterogeneous database platforms. A comparison with a general Boolean search approach shows that the proposed structural search method can help users find desired product information more quickly and correctly. It is believed that virtual enterprise partners can benefit from using this system to increase their competitive advantage.

Virtual enterprise (VE) is such an effective and collaborative way for today's enterprise to jointly face the great pressures from quickly growing globalization and world-wide market competition. In order for enterprises to quickly form a VE and perfectly achieve interactions among the VE's members, a conceptual model based-on enterprise core capability and an agent-based architecture are proposed in this paper. Furthermore, a wiki & blog-based knowledge-sharing mechanism and its prototype system are designed for supporting enterprises to inter-communicate, share knowledge and manage knowledge within a VE environment.

An information management system for production planning in virtual enterprises

Nowadays, virtual enterprise (VE) is an important paradigm of business management in an agile environment. VE exists in several kinds of business organization through multi-layered product flows. It is obvious that a mechanism, through which these different enterprises can be integrated together, is required for the better management of VE. In this paper, we focus on the negotiation process in VE formulation as a basic research to clarify its effective management. Each enterprise in VE is defined as a software agent with multi-utilities, and three types of primitive business models are targeted, such as the vertically integrated business model, horizontally specialized business model and hybrid business model. We develop a three-layered VE model for computer simulation so as to clarify VE formulation dynamism with the proposed negotiation mechanism.

Agile manufacturing, a recently popularized concept, has been advocated as the 21st century manufacturing paradigm. Markets become highly diversified and global, and continuous and unexpected change, become the key factors for success. The need for a method of rapidly and cost­ effectively developing products, production facilities, and supporting information technology has led to the concept of agile manufacturing. Agile manufacturing requires enriching of the customer, cooperating with competitor organizing to manage change, uncertainty and complexity; and leverage people and information. The key enabler of agile manufacturing include: i) virtual enterprises formation, ii) physically distributed teams, iii) integrated business information system. This framework as a basis for understanding the major strategies and relevant tecnnologies of agile manufacturing (AM).

A transaction is a bilateral exchange between two parties in which goods are delivered in return for payment. In virtual enterprise environments, transactions are the principal means of collaboration among the enterprise members, as well as the mechanism with which the enterprise provides its products to its external clients. In this paper we examine the concept of transactions in virtual enterprises. We define transactions as recursive processes (similar to supply chains), and we formalize the concept of transaction cost. We then examine transaction failure and transaction risk, which lead us to the concept of transaction expected loss. The overall goal is to allow enterprise members to launch those transactions that minimize their expected losses. We also discuss how initiating redundant transactions can further reduce expected losses.KeywordsProduction PlanCost ModelExpected LossVirtual EnterpriseTransaction ModelThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Virtual enterprise oriented projects need the support of distributed project management system which concerns the collaboration of different departments and enterprises. In this chapter, we propose a multiagent system with negotiation strategies for project schedule control - a collaborative system framework wherein a distributed project can be scheduled dynamically by agents in the virtual enterprise environment. A prototype of the multiagent systems with the negotiation strategies is implemented by Java, JADE, FIPA-ACL, and the negotiation strategies are experimentally validated. It successfully demonstrates on the online coordination and resolution of scheduling dynamically while encountering unexpected events to meet each project participant’s requirements.

Industrial enterprises are required to show an increasing agile behaviour in order to participate in temporary alliances (virtual enterprises) and to keep their competitiveness while facing new emerging manufacturing trends such as mass customization. The required agility should not be confined to the high-level management aspects, but has to be a characteristic supported at all levels of the enterprise. A particularly challenging area is the shop-floor agility. Starting with a set of real world case studies, this paper presents the motivations for a proposal of a re-engineering methodology, introduces and characterises its main steps, and then focus on code generation for the control/supervision system of evolving shopfloors.KeywordsAssembly LineShop FloorMass CustomizationVirtual EnterpriseManufacture Execution SystemThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

This paper describes the terminology of Virtual Enterprise Environments as a construct to enable the combination of spaces for open innovation and Virtual Enterprises. This shall contribute towards better management of innovation processes in collaborative networks. Consequently this includes the Business Innovation Space and the Value Production Space, which are shared by the collaborating enterprises. Initial attempts are made to characterize the schematics of these spaces and their interactions.KeywordsVirtual Enterprise EnvironmentOpen InnovationInnovation SpaceValue Production Spacemodelling innovation processes

New advancements in computers and information technologies have yielded novel ideas to create more effective virtual collaboration platforms for multiple enterprises. Virtual enterprise (VE) is a collaboration model between multiple independent business partners in a value chain and is particularly suited to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The most challenging problem in implementing VE systems is ineffcient and inflexible data storage and management techniques for VE systems. In this research, an ontology-based multi-agent virtual enterprise (OMAVE) system is proposed to help SMEs shift from the classical trend of manufacturing part pieces to producing high-value-added, high-tech, innovative products. OMAVE targets improvement in the flexibility of VE business processes in order to enhance integration with available enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. The architecture of OMAVE supports the requisite flexibility and enhances the reusability of the data and knowledge created in a VE system. In this article, a detailed description of system features along with the rule-based reasoning and decision support capabilities of OMAVE system are presented. To test and verify the functionality and operation of this system, a sample product was manufactured using OMAVE applications and tools with the contribution of three SMEs.

Agile Manufacturing has emerged as a new paradigm for coping with the dynamic and turbulent manufacturing environments of the twenty-first century. Much work has been done to identify the basic elements deemed necessary for agility, using a “one size fits all” approach. Different types of agile manufacturing systems, however, will be required for different agile manufacturing environments. This paper discusses agile manufacturing from this point-of-view.