0000000000424856
AUTHOR
G. Lo Nigro
Production planning in reconfigurable enterprises and reconfigurable production systems
Reconfigurable enterprises and reconfigurable production systems represent nowadays one of the key responses towards the organisational and manufacturing needs arising in the new era known as mass customization. The paper proposes an Agent Based approach for the production planning activities in reconfigurable enterprises, characterized by complex, articulated and geographically distributed production capacities contended by many product families and composed by reconfigurable production systems that allow quick adjustment of production capacity and functionality consenting to manufacture different products of the same part family.
A DSS for Strategic Planning
This chapter presents an innovative approach for assisting entrepreneurs in making long term capacity decisions in Advanced Manufacturing Systems (AMSs). AMSs require high investment costs in manufacturing equipment, human resources and technology knowledge. Such high investments together with the wideness and the variability of the competition scenario contribute to increase the perception of the risk for industrial entrepreneurs especially in SMEs. This problem could be approached by providing the entrepreneur with a Decision Support System (DSS) able to assist her/him in making long term capacity decision in AMS. The DSS proposed in this chapter allows the entrepreneur to plan its produc…
Robust Design of Automated Guided Vehicles System in an FMS
Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV), as material handling systems, are widely diffused in FMS environment. The design of such a system involves the selection of the most suitable lay-out on one hand, and the choice of the “optimal” level of some parameters such as the number of vehicles. machine buffer capacity, the number of pallets, vehicle and part dispatching rules, etc. on the other. The optimal combination of these factor levels, that maximises a certain output variable, could be uncovered by Response Surface Methodology (RSM). But two are the problems that immediately arise in the application of such a technique: how to consider the qualitative variables, like dispatching or loading rule…
High Level Planning of Reconfigurable Enterprises: a Game Theoretic Approach
Reconfigurable Enterprises (REs) represent production networks made of different and geographically dispersed plants that, in case of unpredictable market changes, can be reconfigured in order to gather a specific production objective. However, REs effectiveness and efficiency depend on the extent to which global performance is obtained. Basically two approaches are available to reach coordination: centralised or decentralised planning tools. In this paper, the authors propose a novel cooperative game theoretical approach for distributed production planning at high level of a RE; the proposed approach has been benchmarked in front of both a distributed one, based on negotiation, and a centr…
Designing multi-attribute auctions for engineering services procurement in new product development in the automotive context
Abstract In recent years, use of multi-attribute auctions has been consolidating as a powerful mechanism in procurement settings where multiple drivers affect the transaction outcome. This paper provides a project management approach for multi-attribute auction design for standardized engineering services procurement in the context of new product development in automotive industry. Two variables are taken into account in the bidding process: price and duration of the given engineering activity. From a theoretical viewpoint, we fully determine optimal suppliers’ bidding strategies and expected outcomes, i.e. score/utility, price and duration, for the buyer under both first score sealed bid a…
Negotiation mechanisms for capacity allocation in distributed enterprises
Abstract The paper proposes an agent based approach for the capacity allocation in distributed enterprises, characterized by complex and articulated organizations and by geographically distributed production capacities contended by many product families. In such a scenario the process of allocating the production capacity to the single customer order is one the major bottlenecks of the production planning activity as far as many organizational decisional levels are involved and market turbulence implies a continuous retuning of the capacity allocation plan. A high grade of reactiveness is needed. Agent based approaches and negotiation models, by decentralizing the decisional control and sim…
Coordination policies to support decision making in distributed production planning
Abstract Distributed production networks are considered organizational structures able to match agility and efficiency necessary to compete in the global market. Performances of such organization structures heavily depend on the ability of the network actors of coordinating their activities. The research proposes to model and design coordination problems within production network by using the Multiple Agent Technology. In particular, the paper proposes new strategies for coordinating production-planning activities within production networks. Such models have been developed and tested by using a proper simulation environment developed by using open source code and architecture. The results o…
A Decision Making Tool in FMS Design
In FMS design one of the initial fundamental decision concerns the flexibility level of the workstations to be implemented. New machining centers offer the possibility to carry out several operations on the workpieces to be processed, thus reducing the workload both of the material handling system and of the resources used to control the part flow in the FMS. In spite of advantages related to the use of the machining centers with high flexibility, the better typology of each workstation must be evaluated taking into account its influence on the tools fleet and on the workload of the handling and tool room subsystems.