The application of dependency management in an integrated manufacturing network framework

Research into the effectiveness and performance of the mobile agent (MA) technology as a means of managing a domain of manufacturing devices has been conducted. However, it has been shown that MAs are not without their scalability issues. A strategic agent travelling algorithm will bring performance improvement as it allows agents to identify the best migration path in order to minimise the total expected time of searching for the desired information. The applications of process-driven dependency management along with MA techology are examined as methods for optimising the efficiency of retrieving critical information in the manufacturing environment. An integrated framework is developed to investigate the alignment of network management paradigm to the strategic management decision.