Nancy Ruiz

Agent-supported simulation environment for intelligent manufacturing and warehouse management systems

The manufacturing field is an area where the application of simulation is an essential tool for validating methods and architectures before applying them on the factory floor and the warehouse control. Multiagent system technology has demonstrated its utility in manufacturing system modelling and implementation. Agenthood features such as proactivity, reactivity, sociability and trust may also be useful for associating them with the specific simulation needs of the new manufacturing and warehouse management requirements. In this article, we present an agent-supported simulation tool for an intelligent manufacturing system and its influence with the management of the warehouse applied to a metal-mechanic manufacturing enterprise. The main goal is to provide a flexible simulation tool that can be adapted to solve the new manufacturing requirements and optimise and validate methods of management of material in warehouses that appear in real environments. Thus, the benefits of the multiagent theory application for the simulation of intelligent manufacturing and warehouse management system allows the experts of manufacturing domains to optimise the resource usage, control of inventory, providers and to have enough data to make decisions that influence the production level are presented.

Towards an Agent-based Simulation Tool for Manufacturing Systems

The application of simulation to manufacturing has contributed to a generation of tools that is focused on specific problem solving related to automation, planning, material flow, supply chain, logistics, etc. Nowadays, manufacturing has evolved and its needs have changed. After an analysis of the current manufacturing simulation tools, we propose an approach based on multiagent systems theory, which covers current manufacturing needs.

An Agent-Supported Simulation of Labour and Financial Markets for Migration Processes

The Migration Process is a phenomenon that includes a variety of actors, societies and political issues at different levels. In the migration problem it is then possible to observe complex interactions among different entities: there are links among economics, politics, social, commercial, labour, health, culture, and safety areas. Migration movements may also influence and be influenced by the effects of policies and norms of both sending and receiving countries. One of the key factors that influence the Migration Process behavior is the Labour Market, which is simultaneously affected by Financial Markets. These interactions have been traditionally represented by mathematical approaches that do not allow including flexibility, autonomy, adaptive and pro-activity features that are present into the dynamic and complex real life migration scenarios. On the other hand, the Multiagent System (MAS) paradigm has been successfully applied in studies related to mass movement in complex environments. In this paper a MAS simulation approach is proposed to simulate the migration process and to model micro-level interaction protocols that link Labour and Financial Markets to Migration Processes (MP-LM&FM) in order to observe dynamic behaviours that may emerge at macro level.

AGENT-BASED SIMULATION FOR BORDER CROSSING MODELING

The aim of this study is to build a computational model to simulate border crossing. Since the 19th century, many theories have been applied to the study of international migration phenomena. These theories cover sociological, economical, and cultural aspects. All the theories aim at estimating the magnitude of population movements. Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) are presented as a new methodological approach to model and foresee the process of migration. This article discusses how legal aspects can also be treated from a computational point of view. When a migrant reaches the border checkpoint, he/she must deal with the legislation of the destination country, which is applied by the border security police. This interaction at the microlevel between the migrant and the border agent is based on the definition of a behavioral model that includes the migrants profile, the border officers profile, and the legislation that rules the border crossing. With this model, the effects at the macrolevel of new policies (which are usually difficult to predict) can be estimated. Changes in legislation or in strictness in applying the existing law at certain borders can influence migration trends; for example, the choice of route. This study presents the main features of the computational model that has been developed to recreate the border-crossing scenario in a Multi-Agent System.

Using an Agent-Supported Simulation Environment for Intelligent Manufacturing Systems

The manufacturing field is an area where the application of simulation is an essential tool for validating methods and architectures before applying them on the factory floor. Multiagent System technology has demonstrated its utility in manufacturing system modeling and implementation. Agenthood features such as proactivity, reactivity, and sociability may also be useful for associating them with the specific simulation needs of the new manufacturing requirements. In this paper, we present an Agent-supported Simulation Tool (tool uses both events and discrete time to control agent tasks) for Intelligent Manufacturing Systems applied to a real manufacturing enterprise case study. The main goal is to provide a flexible simulation tool that can be adapted to solve the new manufacturing requirements that appear in a real environment allowing the experts of manufacturing domains to optimize the resource usage and to have enough data to make decisions.

Early Requirement Guidelines for Multiagent System Modeling

The specification of a multiagent system (MAS) is a complex problem. In the specialized literature, there are many MAS methodologies, but almost all of them lack an early requirement phase in which the initial key elements of the system are identified. In this paper, we propose some guidelines for the early requirement specification of MAS based on the decomposition theory of complex systems. These guidelines will help the software engineer to build an initial MAS structure defined by roles, goals, and role relations. Moreover, our approach can be used to define an early requirement phase in any MAS methodology