Towards a Framework for Agent-Based Product Modelling

International Journal of Internet and Enterprise Management, 2003

Today, many researchers working on the information management process in construction recognise the problem of modelling complex product-related data structures. Furthermore, many experts doubt whether an all-inclusive-product-model is a solution for an integrated information environment that should efficiently support the life cycle of a product. It seems that the rich experiences in product modelling gathered during the last decade do not necessarily lead to better models but rather to the awareness that the more complex the product models are, the more rigid and less usable they become in practice. The paper first summarises some deficiencies of complex product models and then introduces a new conceptual solution, called 'virtual product model', which is based on the decomposition of a conventional product model. The concept investigates disharmony in the structure and semantics of distributed (virtual) parts by applying agent technology and the tuple space communication model. . His teaching work encompasses computer science and information technology courses for civil engineering students, where he explores distance education concepts. Dr. Tibaut´s key research qualifications and interests are knowledge management, agents and ontology design, parallel computing algorithms, computer graphics, visualisation and product models. He has published over 30 conference and journal papers in the field of computer science, construction IT and distance education.

Information Management & Computer Security, 2009

Purpose – The main purpose of this paper is to briefly discuss the concept of product data management (PDM) describing the contributions, objectives and some currently existing challenges. Design/methodology/approach – By targeting the described challenges, it proposes a new semantic-oriented agent and knowledge base approach and presents its conceptual and implementation designs. The available prototype version of the proposed approach

2010

Supporting different stakeholder viewpoints across the product's entire lifecycle requires semantic richness for representing product related information. This paper proposes a multi-layered product-modeling framework that enables stakeholders to define their product-specific models and relate product-specific models to physical or simulated instances. The framework is defined within the Model-driven Architecture and adapted to the multi-layer approach of the architecture. The data layer represents real world products, the model layer includes models of those products, and the meta-model layer defines the product modeling language. The semantic-based product modeling language described in this paper is specialized from a web ontology language enabling product designers to express the semantics of their product models explicitly and logically in an engineering-friendly way. The interactions between these three layers are described to illustrate how each layer in the framework is used in a product engineering context. FFICIENT collaboration is essential when products are designed by temporally and spatially separated engineers. Collaborative environments enable product designers to interact and reach agreement by sharing design knowledge and product information [1], . Ontology can play a role in the environments as a shared product information model because ontology is a formal and explicit specification of a shared conceptualization . The collaborative environment needs the support of a generic product modeling language that: (1) can be readily specialized for the products at hand; (2) can provide information to all stakeholders throughout the product lifecycle; and (3) provides explicit, logical semantics of the concepts and relationships involved, without requiring that the stakeholders be versed in ontological thinking.

Computers in Industry, 2006

The importance of product information management during the whole lifetime of the product has increased due to the technical sophistication of products as well as stricter governmental regulations for lifecycle management. Just sending the relevant product information downstream in the supply chain does not solve the challenges of product information management of complex products due to difficulties in updating the information and a risk of information overflow in the supply chain. This article describes an agent-based information management model that can be used for managing the information of complex products at a component level in a distributed manner. Further the paper presents an information management platform that can achieve information management requirements by using seven distinct messages. also thank the companies who have contributed in the financing and validation of the methods described here. Finally, the authors greatly appreciate the feedback from the anonymous referees that helped us improve the original paper. concept of information decoupling point is developed further in the context of traceability and quality control in the food industry, introducing the notion of traceability decoupling point. At the traceability decoupling point the product data is aggregated together behind a label, such as "environmentally kind" or "animal friendly". After the traceability decoupling point, the detailed information can be retrieved using the label as a reference. "Product centric information management" in which information regarding a product is retrieved over information networks when needed using unique product identities as references is one solution type complying with the information decoupling point principle .

Supporting different stakeholder viewpoints across the product's entire lifecycle requires semantic richness for representing product related information. This paper proposes a multi-layered product modeling framework that enables stakeholders to define their product-specific models and relate them to physical or simulated instances. The framework is defined within the Model-driven Architecture and adapted to the multi-layer approach of the architecture. The data layer represents real world products, the model layer includes models of those products, and the meta-model layer (M2) defines the product modeling language. The semantic-based product modeling language described in this paper is specialized from a web ontology language enabling product designers to express the semantics of their product models explicitly and logically in an engineering-friendly way. The interactions between these three layers are described to illustrate how each layer in the framework is used in a product engineering context. A product example is provided for further understanding of the framework.

2006

On the one hand, the Software Product Lines (SPL) field is devoted to build a core architecture for a family of products from which concrete products can be derived rapidly by means of reuse. On the other hand, Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) is a software engineering paradigms dedicated to build software applications composed of organizations of agents. Bringing AOSE to the industrial world may prettily benefit from SPL advantages. Using SPL philosophy, a company will be able to define a core MAS from which concrete products will be derived for each customer. This can reduce time-to-market, costs, etcetera. In this paper, we expose the similarities between AOSE and SPL concluding the viability of future research in Multi-Agent Systems Product Lines (MAS-PL).

2008

In this paper, we explore the use of existing software product line (SPL)

This papers presents some ideas to use so-called software agents as a software representation of a product not only during manufacturing but also during the whole life cycle of the product. Software agents are autonomous entities capable of collecting useful information about products. By their design and capabilities software agents fit well in the concept of ubiquitous computing. We use these agents in our newly developed manufacturing process. This paper discusses further use of agent technology.

2020

Agent-based architectures have become a mainstream technological concept that may allow factories to adopt distributed intelligence patterns that enable the advanced manufacturing model of Industry 4.0. However, there is a lack of methodologies and tools that support the specification, deployment and execution of agent-based manufacturing applications. This article describes the first steps to build an agent-based platform that provides a reusable software core that can be customized to offer the services required for factory-specific manufacturing systems. In this sense, the contribution of this article is two-fold: on the one hand, the proposal of a model-based definition of manufacturing applications based on factory-specific concepts that are represented in three XML schemas; on the other hand, a proposal for distributing the complexity of product intelligence in a set of agents that allow achieving separation of concerns regarding customer interaction and traceability of the pr...

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2009

Software Product Line (SPL) approaches motivate the development and implementation of a flexible and adaptable architecture to enable software reuse in organizations. The SPL architecture addresses a set of common and variable features of a family of products. Based on this architecture, products can be derived in a systematic way. A multi-agent system product line (MAS-PL) defines an SPL architecture that is modularized, also using software agents to model, design and implement its common and variable features. This paper presents the development of an MAS-PL for the web domain, describing its architecture, the agents that compose the system and details of the object-oriented implementation and design. This MAS-PL consists of the evolutionary development of the ExpertCommittee web-based system. Furthermore, this paper reports some lessons learned from this exploratory study of definition of a MAS-PL.

Journal of Systems and Software, 2009

Agent-oriented software engineering and software product lines are two promising software engineering techniques. Recent research work has been exploring their integration, namely multi-agent systems product lines (MAS-PLs), to promote reuse and variability management in the context of complex software systems. However, current product derivation approaches do not provide specific mechanisms to deal with MAS-PLs. This is essential because they typically encompass several concerns (e.g., trust, coordination, transaction, state persistence) that are constructed on the basis of heterogeneous technologies (e.g., object-oriented frameworks and platforms). In this paper, we propose the use of multi-level models to support the configuration knowledge specification and automatic product derivation of MAS-PLs. Our approach provides an agent-specific architecture model that uses abstractions and instantiation rules that are relevant to this application domain. In order to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach, we have implemented it as an extension of an existing product derivation tool, called GenArch. The approach has also been evaluated through the automatic instantiation of two MAS-PLs, demonstrating its potential and benefits to product derivation and configuration knowledge specification.► We propose the use of multi-level models to support the product derivation of MAS-PLs. ► Our model-driven approach supports automatic and correct product derivation. ► The models reduce the complexity and verbosity of the configuration knowledge.

2009

SUMMARY: The European Semantic Web-based Open engineering Platform, project (SWOP 2008) is concerned with business innovation when specifying products to suit end-user's requirements and objectives. This paper will show how Semantic Web (SW) ...

Computers in Industry, 2017

Compared with Computer Aided Design (CAD) to use computer graphics technologies to describe geometric information for the product design, many new methodologies and systems have been developed in the past decades in product modeling to extend the functions of the traditional CAD systems. In the product representation aspect, in addition to the design solution usually modeled by geometric descriptions, modeling of product knowledge has been widely investigated to describe the rationale for creation of the product solution. In the information technology aspect, in addition to the traditional computing tools such as computer programming languages and object oriented design, distributed computing technologies particularly Internet, web and cloud computing tools have been widely employed to implement product modeling systems. In the product development process aspect, in addition to the design solution, other product lifecycle aspects such as manufacturing, maintenance and service have been modeled and integrated into the same environment. In this literature review, the recent advances of research on product modeling in product representation, information technologies and product development process are investigated from these three new perspectives: knowledge, distributed computing, and product lifecycle. In addition, traditional methodologies and future challenges in computer-based product modeling are also discussed. 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

IFIP – The International Federation for Information Processing, 2008

This paper introduces a novel concept, the intelligent being, as a vehicle to achieve suitability for integration. The paper argues for a role of the intelligent being that is analogous to what maps contribute in navigation systems (and may become as important). The concept is applied to intelligent product instances, intelligent product types and intelligent resources alike.

2012

Today product development activities are becoming more and more agile, adaptable, and cost-effective. Multi-agent-based system technology has found wide applications in managing company’s information. This paper applies Multi-mobile-agent technology in developing a collaborative architecture for product lifecycle. By adopting the Aglets mobile agent platform, a generic platform has been developed for managing legacy product data and information across the product lifecycle. Different lifecycle stage product data and information and their interaction and administration are encapsulated, represented and operated with different agents. The system aims to integrate mobile agents into different locations so as to fully utilize the product lifecycle information, and make the product lifecycle decision satisfying the global target of the company. The architecture and the working principle, framework and implementation of the system are addressed in detail. The model of the mobile agents in...