| EPSRC Reference: |
GR/N11940/01 |
| Title: |
DIMS: DYNAMICALLY INTEGRATED MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS FOR AGILE MANUFACTURING |
| Principal Investigator: |
Zhang, Professor DZ |
| Other Investigators: |
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| Researcher Co-Investigators: |
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| Project Partners: |
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| Department: |
Engineering Computer Science and Maths |
| Organisation: |
University of Exeter |
| Scheme: |
Standard Research (Pre-FEC) |
| Starts: |
12 February 2001 |
Ends: |
11 August 2004 |
Value (£): |
305,200
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| EPSRC Research Topic Classifications: |
| Manufact. Enterprise Ops& Mgmt |
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| EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications: |
| Manufacturing |
Construction |
| Electronics |
Information Technologies |
| Water |
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| Panel History: |
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Summary on Grant Application Form |
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A major challenge for today's manufacturing enterprise is how to react rapidly and cost effectively to dynamic variations in demand patterns and product mix, driven by unpredictable changes in a global market and increasing rates of new product introduction. While the concept of Virtual Enterprise attempts to address the challenge from a supply-chain point of view, achieving supply responsiveness alone without simultaneous adjustments of an enterprise's own manufacturing system will not be sufficient. This proposal sets out a research programme to investigate how to dynamically and cost-effectively optimise, configure, restructure, reprogram and control complex manufacturing systems in an integrated manner to cope with dynamic variations in demand patterns and increasing rates of new product introduction. The concept is to represent a complex manufacturing system with a multi-layer agent-based modelling and simulation architecture, referred to as Autonomous Agent Network (AAN), and to concurrently generate and evaluate alternative planning, scheduling, reconfiguration and restructuring options using an agent-based bidding process, referred to as BBS. The project will investigate how to realise the concept and fully define the architectures, operations, and techniques underpinning the concept. Ways for reprogramming systems following reconfiguration/restructuring will be investigated and the applicability of the concept in industrial contexts explored.
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Key Findings |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Potential use in non-academic contexts |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Impacts |
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| Description |
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk |
| Summary |
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| Date Materialised |
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Sectors submitted by the Researcher |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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| Project URL: |
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| Further Information: |
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| Organisation Website: |
http://www.ex.ac.uk |