Track: Information Technology

Abstract

Current scenarios for the future of manufacturing focus on the flexible interconnection of manufacturing machines and devices. Though there is no doubt that the value added by incorporating ICT into manufacturing processes seems promising, there is no clear path visible how current manufacturers, in particular small and medium enterprises (SME), can migrate towards this bright future of manufacturing. This study proposes a bottom-up approach to smart manufacturing, taking into consideration what currently is feasible and desirable from the view of a manufacturing SME. The approach taken is illustrated by the implementation of an event monitoring agent for a manufacturing execution and intelligence system (MES). In contrast to many current works on multi-agent systems (MAS) and mobile agents, the author suggests the utilization of domain specific languages (DSL) to program the mobile agents present in a smart factory MES. A DSL reduces security risks introduced by software agents programmed using general-purpose languages. The DSL approach also simplifies the creation of mobile agent runtime environments, which makes it easier for an agent host to specify access rights and charge the mobile agents for hosting them. A case study on injection molding manufacturing shows how the concepts presented in this paper can be applied to current production settings.