Flexible Workflow Driven Job Shop Manufacturing Execution and Automation Based on Multi Agent System

Manufacturing automation with adoptability to the changing environment is a competitive advantage for shop floors. This paper presents a flexible workflow enacted job shop manufacturing execution and automation system. The manufacturing process sequence of each part is modeled as an abstract workflow and each manufacturing job resulting in a batch of the part items is recognized as corresponding workflow instance. The production schedule is generated to establish executable workflow instances to be enacted by the workflow engine and executed by the resources in the shop floor. Agent technology is applied to construct the system to take the advantage of distributed system architecture, reactivity, adaptability and cooperation. The proposed system can help to achieve production efficiency without huge investment on industrial automation system. The system architecture and implementation methods are discussed with demonstration and the performance of manufacturing shop floor is enhanced after the application.