A multi-agent system for on-line fault recovery of intelligent manufacturing systems

As a way to avoid production discontinuity and loss, the paper proposes online reconfiguration of the automatic manufacturing production system. This method also allows one to adapt to unexpected changes in the manufacturing environment. To be reconfigurable online, a manufacturing system must be able to reason about itself by evaluating its own current status and compare it with a desirable status expected at that particular moment in time. In case discrepancies are found, embedded online decision making capabilities should produce required feedback regarding changes in production parameters meant to restore the desired operational conditions. The paper proposes a strategy for online recovering of the manufacturing operationality by using a multiagent based decision support system with fuzzy reasoning. A case study on defect tracking in the fabrication of electronic boards illustrates the main principles of the proposed strategy.