Manufacturing systems integration and agility: Can mobile agents help?

Mobile code is being championed as a solution to a plethora of software problems. This paper investigates whether Mobile Agents and Mobile Objects support improved system integration and agility in the manufacturing domain. We describe two systems built to support the Sales Order Process of a distributed manufacturing enterprise, using IBM's Aglets Software Development Kit. The Sales Order Process model and the requirements for agility used as the basis for these implementations are derived from data collected in an industrial case study. Both systems are evaluated using the Goal/Question/Metric methodology. Two new metrics for Semantic Alignment and Change Capability are presented and used to evaluate each system with respect to the degree of system agility supported. The work described provides evidence that both Mobile Agent and Mobile Object systems have inherent properties that can be used to build agile distributed systems. Further, Mobile Agents with their additional autonomy provide marginally greater support.