Bridging the gap between centralized and distributed manufacturing execution planning

Modern trends in manufacturing demand vertical integration between the enterprise and the field control level. Existing Manufacturing Execution System solutions fail to satisfy the requirements of unpredictable order flow and dynamic shop floor; neither can they deal with the increasing complexity of both. Distribution of the MES functionalities would allow shifting the decision making process from the enterprise down to the field level and providing concurrency of execution that results in a flexible system covering all three levels of the automation pyramid. This paper investigates how and to which extent MES function can actually be decentralized and describes a possible implementation based on software agents.