A current trend in manufacturing is the deployment of modular, distributed and intelligent control systems that introduce adaptation facing unexpected deviations and failures, namely in terms of production conditions and product demand fluctuation. The integration of quality and process control allows the implementation of dynamic self-adaptation procedures and feedback control loops to address a large variety of disturbances and changes in process parameters and variables, aiming to improve the production efficiency and the product quality.
Multi-agent systems (MAS) technology (Wooldridge 2002)(Leitão et al. 2013) is suitable to face this challenge, offering an alternative way to design these adaptive systems, based on the decentralization of functions over distributed autonomous and cooperative agents, providing modularity, flexibility, adaptation and robustness. In spite of the potential benefits of the MAS technology, the number of deployed agent-based solutions in industrial environments, reported in the literature, are few, as illustrated in (Leitão et al. 2013) [colocar aqui referencia ao Pechoucek & Marik].
This chapter describes the development, installation and operation of a multi-agent system, designated as GRACE, integrating quality and process control to operate in a real home appliance production line, producing laundry washing machines, owned by Whirlpool and located in Naples, Italy. The use of the MAS technology acts as the intelligent and distributed infra-structure to support the implementation of real-time monitoring and feedback control loops that apply dynamic self-adaptation and optimization mechanisms to adjust the process and product variables. The agent-based solution was developed using the JADE (Java Agent DEvelopment Framework) framework and successfully installed in the industrial factory plant, contributing for demonstrating the effective applicability and benefits of the MAS technology, namely in terms of production efficiency and product quality.
This work has been partly financed by the EU Commission, within the research contract GRACE coordinated by Univ. Politecnica delle Marche and having partners SINTEF, AEA srl, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Whirlpool Europe srl, Siemens AG.
