Using an Agent-Supported Simulation Environment for Intelligent Manufacturing Systems

The manufacturing field is an area where the application of simulation is an essential tool for validating methods and architectures before applying them on the factory floor. Multiagent System technology has demonstrated its utility in manufacturing system modeling and implementation. Agenthood features such as proactivity, reactivity, and sociability may also be useful for associating them with the specific simulation needs of the new manufacturing requirements. In this paper, we present an Agent-supported Simulation Tool (tool uses both events and discrete time to control agent tasks) for Intelligent Manufacturing Systems applied to a real manufacturing enterprise case study. The main goal is to provide a flexible simulation tool that can be adapted to solve the new manufacturing requirements that appear in a real environment allowing the experts of manufacturing domains to optimize the resource usage and to have enough data to make decisions.