Integration of Multiagent Systems and Service Oriented Architectures in the Steel Industry

In the course of globalization competitive pressure is rising in most industrial sectors. High quality products are basic prerequisites for companies of high wage countries to be present on the global market. Improved adherence to delivery date, increased flexibility despite to decreased production costs are some examples of the challenges to be managed just to keep current positions. In general, these requirements are mostly requirements on the processes - not on the actual products. Economic efficiency is not any longer just a property of products and quality, but more and more a property of processes. Thus, process capability is getting more important beside production capability. This paper shows how service-oriented architectures (SOA) and multi-agent systems (MAS) can be integrated using a model-driven approach. In fact, a model transformation from SoaML - a metamodel for SOA - to DSML4MAS - a domain-specific modeling language for MAS - is utilized for the integration. The relevance of this approach is proven by applying it to a real-world industry scenario. This includes modeling a segment of a production chain of Saarstahl AG - a global respected steel manufacturer. The presented approach helps to increase flexibility of mid and short term planning and scheduling along the chosen segment and thus improve processes.