The agent-based collaborative framework for assembly process planning

Recently there have been keen competition in reducing development time of new products and customers needs have been becoming more various. For the purpose of overcoming these difficulties in assembly plants, constructing an assembly line in a short period of time is a very important factor for obtaining a predominant position in cost and time competition. Because many assembly operations and resources used in assembly operations are related to each other, one process planner's process planning result may affect the other planners' process planning. That is why we need a new business flow and supporting computer system in which output of one planner's plan should be transferred to the other planners in real time. We present a new process planning method for assembly lines based on collaborative system. We propose mediator agent concept which assigns planning tasks to each process planner and mediates their conflicts in case that their results does not coincide with each other. We also propose bound operation method for intervening complication. An agent-based collaborative process planning system is developed, and to verify this system, it is implemented in Internet environment and applied to an automotive assembly line.