Streamlining assembly processes
European companies face increased pressures to adapt to shorter product life cycles and reconfigure more frequently their production systems to offer new product variants. The EU-funded project PRIME (Plug and produce intelligent multi agent environment based on standard technology) has developed a new multi-agent architecture using plug-and-produce principles for configuring production systems through innovative human-machine interaction (HMI) mechanisms. PRIME has enhanced current assembly systems with standardised process and control solutions and interfaces to allow rapid reconfiguration and deployment. These next-generation assembly systems are based on self-awareness and self-adaptation that are made possible through computerised systems (multi-agents), dynamic knowledge sharing and integrated monitoring. Furthermore, they will be able to proactively support error recovery and operational performance improvement. The overall system performance is monitored against production objectives and bottlenecks, enabling optimisation and adaptation of assembly processes. Standardised interfaces are making integration of legacy process system modules easier. Project members analysed the industrial requirements of plug-and-produce assembly systems and defined the PRIME architecture. Focus was placed on developing a semantic model that describes the entire system and a multi-agent data model that supports the correct operation of PRIME. The team has also developed a configuration approach to plug-and-produce assembly systems. Work was geared towards designing and implementing the communication and control infrastructure and testing HMI components. Another task was to enable the PRIME system to proactively select new behaviours and agents to deal with the dynamism introduced by interacting with the real world. To this end, the team has introduced self-awareness, the capacity to self-adapt and the ability to assess its own performance. Three demonstrators have illustrated how PRIME can be applied to real industrial situations. The focus was on verifying, validating and demonstrating the methods developed, and supporting the refinement of the innovative developments through continued assessment and evaluation. The resulting software toolbox is available on the project website. PRIME's breakthrough system will have a major impact on European companies. It should significantly reduce the installation costs and enhance market responsiveness of assembly lines by reducing the reconfiguration time, cost and effort.
Keywords
Assembly systems, multi-agent environment, human-machine interaction, plug-and-produce
