Holonic Ontology and Interaction Protocol for Manufacturing Network Organization

The aim of this paper is to form the best collaborative networked organization of small manufacturers to fulfill a production plan. Manufacturing networks can be formed using two approaches. The conventional approach is the formation of networks by the grouping of the best manufacturers based on multiple criteria. The proposed approach is the formation of all feasible networks followed by the grouping of the best networks based on multiple criteria. The hypothesis of this paper is that the better group of manufacturing networks may not be the result of the selection of the best available manufacturers to form each network, based on the same criteria. The research methodology employed involves techniques such as interaction protocol development, ontology engineering, and principles from concepts such as the contract net protocol, the product-resource-order-staff-architecture, the auctioning process, agent-based modeling, and rule-based programming. Results from the proposed approach were compared to the conventional approach on multiple criteria namely lead time, quality, cost, and delivery reliability. On the basis of the results, the hypothesis was not rejected.