Fractal and mobile agent-based inter-enterprise quality tracking and control

To deal with the complicated problem of quality tracking and control for inter-enterprise in networked manufacturing environment, combined with the similarity of multilayer organization structure and work flow among core enterprise and member enterprises, a model framework based on fractal and mobile agent for inter-enterprise quality tracking and control (IeQTC) is proposed. With the aid of fractal idea, the complicated IeQTC is decomposed into multiple fractal mobile agent templates in which quality information is encapsulated. On this basis, a fractal process flow model of IeQTC is constructed and its process flow execution is built on fractal mobile agent (FMA), FMA templates as nodes of fractal process flow. By starting different FMA templates, a great deal of complex, dynamic and heterogeneous quality information could be captured and processed to realize the goal of IeQTC. This research reduces the difficult of IeQTC and lays foundation for the cooperative quality control of manufacturing process.