Structure and functionality of a PABADIS´PROMISE agent system

European industry is within a drastic change implementing architecture combining mass customisation and lot size one benefits. Therefore, the requirement number one is flexibility. Within this paper an overall concept for manufacturing system improvement developed within the EC project PABADIS´PROMISE is described facing this requirement and providing a new control structure solution composed of several autonomous entities allowing a self-organising production. The reachable variance of producible products within this manufacturing system concept will be limited only by the possibilities of combining manufacturing steps programmed and performed by autonomous entities. In parallel to the consideration of flexibility, increased efficiency is enabled by scheduling mechanisms involving all system entities and autonomy is supported by hardware supporting mobility and powerful connectivity in the physical sense. An important aspect for realisation of the described features is the use of agents to establish a system composed of interacting but independent elements. In the following an introduction in the PABADIS´PROMISE project enlightening the mentioned features and their mutual completion will be given.