Distributed Production with Specification-Generated Processes
Tomasz Janowski · 2000
We study design support for a virtual organization: how to organize production among the set of distributed cells to meet a given production goal. Each cell has a certain capacity to store, manufacture and deliver products, and interacts with other cells by means of information and logistics networks. The goal specifies the product and the volume required. To solve this problem we propose a protocol which given a goal and a cell attempts to generate a sequence of operations on the cell to implement this goal. Lacking the resources locally the protocol generates some auxiliary goals which it communicates to other cells, involving generating (recursively) more processes and goals etc. We formalize the problem and its solution, offer correctness arguments and discuss an email-based implementation. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.