Goal-balancing process for goal formation in the fractal manufacturing system

Abstract

The coordination architecture and mechanisms are proposed for the goal-balancing process (GBP), which is one of the components of goal-formation process (GFP) in the fractal manufacturing system (FrMS). Since each agent in the FrMS generates, achieves and modifies its own goal autonomously during the coordination process with other agents, it is necessary to develop a systematic methodology for the goal-formations in a manufacturing system: GFP takes charge of this methodology, which enables the formation of and the changes in goal through coordination between agents in real-time in the distributed and dynamic systems. The GFP is composed of three sub-processes: the goal-generating process (GGP), the goal-harmonizing process (GHP), and the GBP. The GGP makes and propagates goals for all fractals. The GHP then eliminates or reduces possible conflicts and interferences between goals generated in GGP. The GBP is the post-process of GHP; it refines the fractal's goal, which has been ridded of conflict during the GHP to enhance the global performance of the system, rather than maximizing the performance of each fractal. For the development of the GBP we proposed a mechanism for unit goal-balancing process (UGBP), which is the basic process of GBP that adopts the, fuzzy decision-making, and distributed problem solving approaches.