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Manufacturing Systems

We have investigated formal requirements engineering in the context of manufacturing systems using an agent-oriented perspective. A paper entitled ``The Formal Requirements Engineering of Manufacturing Systems'' has been written by E. Dubois and M. Petit from Namur ([14]). Besides describing the ALBERT language, the paper proposes a methodology based on the distinction between functional and non-functional requirements (FR and NFR). First, FR are expressed in ALBERT by reusing frameworks. In a second phase, these requirements are tailored to the particular needs of the enterprise by taking into account the NFR.

In a second paper ([15]) by E. Dubois and M. Petit entitled ``Using a Formal Declarative Language for Specifying Requirements Modelled in CIMOSA'', we define a possible mapping between CIMOSA (a well-known semi-formal language for modelling CIM systems) and ALBERT. Using a case study, it is shown how the constructs of CIMOSA can be represented in ALBERT and how the process of constructing a CIMOSA specification can be mimiced when using ALBERT, thus gaining the adavantages of a formal language.

Additionally, agent oriented architectures based on the holonic concepts were investigated (e.g. [5,8,26]). The holons are entities which have dual characteristics. That is, with respect to the subordinates the holon is seen as a self-contained whole; and with respect to the superordinates, the holon is seen as a dependent part (which can be be utilised). Using such agents we can build autonomous, distributed, hierarchical systems and such hierarchical systems are known as holorachies.

The study of cooperative agents based on holons (and holorachies) has been a major theme of work in Keele [7,6,23,25,24,1].



Pierre-Yves SCHOBBENS
Sat Mar 16 14:56:52 MET 1996