We are interested in a job-shop scheduling problem corresponding to an industrial problem. Gantt diagram’s optimization can be considered as an NP-difficult problem. Determining an optimal solution is almost impossible, but trying to improve the current s

A.Cardonetal./RoboticsandAutonomousSystems33(2000)179–190189

agents,duetotheiractions,leadtotheappearanceofagentsofintermediategranularityandgeneralopti-mizationinproductionscheduling.Thiscommunica-tionre ectsthegeneticintegrationinanMAS.Thedistributedvisionofaschedulingproblemofjob-shopenablesustoreachamorerealisticvisionbecauseeachagenthasavisionofitsenvironment.Thatistosaythateachiscapableofreactingtoaparticularproblemjustlikeaforemaninhisworkshop.Heisgoingtoreactimmediatelyfollowingthebreakdownofamachine.Similarly,heisgoingtotakedecisions,asagents,thataregoingtohavearepercussionontheenvironment.Consequently,therepresentationbyanMASusingacontractnetisaclosevisionofre-alitythatcanbeeasilytransferredtoanindustrialorganization.

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