Coordination and control in distributed and agent-based manufacturing systems

This paper addresses two fundamental issues inherent to every manufacturing system. These issues concern the coordination and control of manufacturing activities. In doing so, many aspects are reviewed and analysed. First, the main distributed manufacturing paradigms are briefly introduced. Next, the various forms of interdependence that commonly constrain manufacturing activities are reviewed, as well as the coordination mechanisms used to manage them. Then, after analysing different approaches developed to address coordination and control of manufacturing activities in distributed and agent-based manufacturing systems, this paper highlights the limits of the existing classification schemes for coordination mechanisms and provides a new scheme that extends beyond those previously reviewed in order to take into account recent advances. The studied distributed manufacturing paradigms are finally compared in terms of coordination and control.