%0 Journal Article
	%A Iman Badr
	%D 2008
	%J International Journal of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
	%B World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology
	%I Open Science Index 16, 2008
	%T An Agent-Based Scheduling Framework for Flexible Manufacturing Systems
	%U https://publications.waset.org/pdf/2311
	%V 16
	%X The concept of flexible manufacturing is highly
appealing in gaining a competitive edge in the market by quickly
adapting to the changing customer needs. Scheduling jobs on flexible
manufacturing systems (FMSs) is a challenging task of managing the
available flexibility on the shop floor to react to the dynamics of the
environment in real-time. In this paper, an agent-oriented scheduling
framework that can be integrated with a real or a simulated FMS is
proposed. This framework works in stochastic environments with a
dynamic model of job arrival. It supports a hierarchical cooperative
scheduling that builds on the available flexibility of the shop floor.
Testing the framework on a model of a real FMS showed the
capability of the proposed approach to overcome the drawbacks of
the conventional approaches and maintain a near optimal solution
despite the dynamics of the operational environment.
	%P 488 - 494