Emergent synthetic approach for managementof complexity in production systems

Industry 4.0 gives guidelines to drive production to overcome the con-sequences of the 2008 crisis in the manufacturing sector by emphasizing techno-logical innovations, such as industrial internet, cloud manufacturing, etc. Theproposed paper focuses on cognitive manufacturing within the framework of theEmergent Synthesis approach. Specifically, a Class III synthesis problem withreference to tool inventory management in a complex manufacturing environmentis addressed. Such complex environment is proved to be affected by significant non-random uncertainty involving tool delivery time fluctuations and unpredictable tooldemand. To deal with the complexity of the manufacturing environment, this paperpresents bounded rationality as a characteristic of agents. The purpose of theimplemented multi-agent manufacturing model is to manage the uncertainty in theperception, action and inner structure of the manufacturing system by introducingbounded rationality in agent characteristics and the probability–possibility trans-formation of historical data. The applicability and efficiency of the developed multi-agent manufacturing model are investigated in a real industrial case study. Theresults indicate that the complexity of a manufacturing system can be studied and solved as Class III synthesis problem and it is helpful to integrate bounded-rationalagents in a multi-agent system.