Modelling and simulation of dynamically integrated manufacturing systems

Fluctuations in demand patterns and products?? mixes, driven by continuous changes in customer requirements, are inducing significant changes on the operations of manufacturing organisations. How to respond to such changes rapidly and at minimum cost constitutes a major challenge for manufacturers. The DIMS project (Dynamically Integrated Manufacturing Systems) has developed an agent-based approach that enables manufacturing systems to be modelled using multi-agent systems such that optimal and timely responses to changes are generated from the interactions taking place within the multi-agents systems. This approach also incorporates a distributed discrete event simulation mechanism that enables ??what-if?? system configurations that have been generated through agent interactions to be evaluated dynamically for system restructure. This paper presents the approach with particular focus on the distributed simulation mechanism.