An Agent-Based Approach for Flexible Routing in Dynamic Job Shop Scheduling

In an agent-based manufacturing system, a production schedule is developed through negotiation between system agents. With the Contract-net protocol that has been employed as an agent-based negotiation mechanism for many years, cooperation arises in the relationship between resource and job agents as they work to create these schedules. However, the interactions among the resource agents themselves are not really cooperative but competitive. A new factor proposed in this research essentially provides some degree of cooperation among resource agents when used within the context of the Contract-net protocol. More importantly, consideration of this additional factor enhances the system's overall performance. This advantage is demonstrated through results of a job shop simulation.