The mission of this committee is to provide a forum bringing together researchers and application sector specialists contributing to the advancement and application of industrial agent technology in distributed production (supply chain manufacturing, production planning and scheduling, assembly and continuous processes), services and infrastructure sectors. In addition we target the novel and emerging areas driving progress in the industrial sector today - such as industrial ecosystems animated by the next generation Internet. The committee will provide a continuing base to many researchers who have been participating in national and international projects building on the knowledge-base created by past and current efforts like IMS program, EU NoE. The key drivers for this effort are the benefits of agent-based industrial systems, namely: robustness, scalability, re-configurability and productivity, all of which translate to a greater competitive advantage. The experience of some of the committee members showed that agent-based automation can enable a physical production line that would be scalable in production by 70% and has a 40% greater productivity. Similar opportunities exist in supply chains, service sectors and infrastructure systems.
Within the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society the Committee aims:
- To develop strategies for supporting systems developments using state of the art technologies and to assist in developing an integrated understanding of future systems needs for the addressed application sectors;
- To develop strategies for generating cross-cutting activities with other TCs of the IES;
- To provide forums and opportunities for members to exchange ideas, knowledge, experience, learning and results in this area.
- To stimulate cross-fertilization of technical and scientific ideas for the advancement of the industrial agents field in tune with latest breakthroughs at the confluence of the ICT and intelligent manufacturing sectors.