Fuzzy agents for product configuration in collaborative and distributed design process

Design for product configuration is an inherent collaborative and distributed process. It is characterised by fuzziness of information, fuzziness of knowledge and fuzziness of interactions. Designs for configuration organisations are heterogeneous, dynamic and fuzzy evolving systems. This paper proposes a fuzzy agent-based approach to assist the product configuration. Four heterogeneous and distributed domains: (a) requirement, (b) functional, (c) solution and (d) constraint, are considered. Based on the distributed fuzzy models, fuzziness of interactions, a fuzzy computational approach for product configuration is developed. Agentification of the configuration approach, modelling and the implementation of a multiagent system, are presented. The fuzzy consensual solution agents emerge from fuzzy interactions of fuzzy distributed agents. The optimal product configuration emerges from affinities of the fuzzy consensual solution agents. A case study is presented to demonstrate the potential of this approach. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.