Real-time scheduling for holonic manufacturing systems based on estimation of future status

This paper deals with a real-time scheduling system of holonic manufacturing systems (HMSs), which were proposed by an international cooperative research consortium called The HMS Consortium for Autonomous Distributed Management and Control of the Manufacturing Systems. The scheduling system generates real-time suitable production schedules, based on decision making by individual constituents named holons and their coordination. The objective of the present research is to improve the decision-making processes of the individual holons through the use of estimation process of the future status of the HMS. Procedures are developed and implemented to the individual holons, in order to estimate the future status of the HMS by applying the simulation model of the HMS. A neural network model is proposed to represent and to simulate the decision-making process of the individual holons.