Agent-Oriented Smart Factory (AOSF): An MAS Based Framework for SMEs Under Industry 4.0

Abstract

For the concept of Industry 4.0 to come true, a mature amalgamation of allied technologies is obligatory, i.e. Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data analytics, Mobile Computing, Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) and Cloud Computing. With the emergence of the fourth industrial revolution, proliferation in the field of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) and Smart Factory gave a boost to recent research in this dimension. Despite many autonomous frameworks contributed in this area, there are very few widely acceptable implementation frameworks, particularly for Small to Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) under the umbrella of Industry 4.0. This paper presents an Agent-Oriented Smart Factory (AOSF) framework, integrating the whole supply chain (SC), from supplier-end to customer-end. The AOSF framework presents an elegant mediating mechanism between multiple agents to increase robustness in decision making at the base level. Classification of agents, negotiation mechanism and few results from a test case are presented.