Negotiation Strategy for a Distributed Resolution of Real Time Production Management Problems

Real world manufacturing environments are highly dynamic because of frequently changing situations. Deterministic mechanisms using a centralized control mechanism cannot handle the system dynamics. Agent-based approaches are particularly suitable for dynamic manufacturing scheduling. This paper proposes a negotiation approach based on multiagent system for complex manufacturing systems. The local scheduling and control function in dynamic distributed environment is addressed by a new negotiation protocol based on a hybrid model. The agent negotiation protocol that we have developed facilitates the establishment of the solution program in real time on the basis of hybridization between the Contract Net Protocol and a particular approach which is based on artificial intelligence. The purpose of this protocol is to assign operations dynamically to the production system resources in order to accomplish the proposed task. The article describes the common resource sharing through a number of scenarios of negotiation between the initiator agents and participants; this description treats the cases of conflicts, renegotiation and waiting.