Distributed manufacturing control using fuzzy contract net

The manufacturing industry undertakes the most intensive and comprehensive steps towards rationalization. The development towards intelligent control of manufacturing and logistics processes and quick reaction on rapid changes of production parameters require more efficient and intelligent manufacturing control systems in order to achieve maximum results. A fuzzy contract net based system devoted to solving the scheduling problem in a variety of manufacturing environments has been developed at the University of Dortmund providing workers with current manufacturing schedules and resource-availability reports. It features an architecture inspired by the contract net described by Smith and Davis and a hierarchical fuzzy model. In general the contract net approach models transfer of control in a distributed system with the metaphor of negotiation among autonomous intelligent beings