ADN: AN AGENTBASED DECISION NETWORK FOR CONCURRENT DESIGN AND MANUFACTURING

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ADN AN AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORK FOR
CONCURRENT DESIGN AND MANUFACTURING

• cadcam lab. Ohk, hyungseok

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Abstract
Engineering design is a complex process. Even
in designing a simple product, tens, if not
hundreds, of decisions must be made by a single
designer or manufacturer
we take a decision-based approach to model
design process and introduce an agent-based
decision network (ADN) to support
concurrent decision-making and collaboration in
design and manufacturing
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Abstract

• a decision-based design process model (DDPM) to
  capture individual designers' design processes
• a condition-based negotiation model (CNM) to
  facilitate condition-based negotiation process
  and to track both conditions generated and
  decisions made at each design stage for
  downstream negotiation support

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Abstract AND framework

• In ADN, each designer is associated with an agent
  and both the DDPM and CNM are captured and
  facilitated by agents and are not explicitly
  visible to designers.
• Agents generate and utilize the DDPM and CNM
  information to support their designers.

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Before Start What is agent?
Definition

• ???? ??? ??? ???? ????? ????? ?? ?? ??? ????
  ??? ???? ???? ??? ???? ???? ????

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Stand-Alone ??? ???? ?
RULE ???? ?? ?? 12?? ??? ? ?????? ??? ???.
ADAPTER ???? ??? ???
APPLICATION ???? ?????? ???
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???? ???

• Agent
• ACL? ?? Agent? ??
• ?? ? ???? ??, ???, ??? ? ??
• Agent-based software Engineering
• Stanford Univ. Computer Science Department
• ACL(Agent Communication Language)
• ???? Knowledge Query And
• Manipulation Language
• ???? ?? ??? ??? ??.

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? ???? ???? ?? ?

• IBM Intelligent Agent System
• WBI (Web Browser Intelligence) Personal Web
  Agent
• Agent Building Enviroment Toolkit (ABE)
• intelligent agent? ??? ????? ??? ???? toolkit
• Aglet
• mobile agent? ??? ???? tool
• JKQML (Java based KQML API)
• Software agent??? KQML? ???? ??? ?? ?? ???? ???
  ???? framework

• http//www.networking.ibm.com/iag/iaghome.html

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? ???? ???? ?? ?

• IBM Intelligent Agents
• Agent Building Enviroment Toolkit (ABE)

• http//www.networking.ibm.com/iag/iaghome.html

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? ???? ???? ?? ?

• JAVA based KQML (JKQML)

1. ??? ?? ?? ??? ???? ??? ??? ????????
broker-all? ???? ???.
2. ??????? ???? ??? ???? Agent1? ??? ?? ???.
Broker Faciliator
Agent2 Buyer
Agent1 Shop
3. ??? ?? ??? ???????? ????.
4. ??????? ???? ??? Agent1?? ????..

• http//www.alphaworks.ibm.com/formula/jkqml

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Introduction need in collaboration

• Collaboration is needed for designer working in
  teams to exchange information with each other,
  find and resolve design conflicts, generate new
  ideas and design options, and assess the
  manufacturability of a given design
• Nowadays, major design and manufacturing
  companies are more concerned about consistency
  and efficiency of their design teams rather than
  how the detailed design is being done.

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Introduction related research

• Axiomatic Design Model, Suh has identified two
  axioms to be fundamental (i.e. Independence axiom
  and information axiom).
• The former suggests maintaining independence
  between functional requirements and the latter
  suggests minimizing the information content.

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Introduction related research

• Systematic design model is based on the
  observation that engineering design must be
  carefully planned and systematically executed and
  that a design method must integrate maany
  different aspects of engineering
• Some of the decision-based design models
  (Hazelrigg 1998) use a decision based axiomatic
  framework of engineering design with emphasis on
  try to define design problems in algebraic forms
  and solve them with optimization algorithms.

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Introduction importance of coordination

• As much as local design is important and
  essential in team design process, the key action
  that differentiates collaborative design form
  isolated design is coordination.
• Coordination is needed to manage
  interdependencies between designers and to
  facilitate progress of each individual .

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Introduction our objectives are..

• 1) to develop a decision-based model for local
  decision making,
• 2) to develop a negotiation model to support
  coordination and resolve conflicts among team
  members based on the local design process, and
• 3) to develop an agent-based system to support
  local and group design decision making and
  coordination

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Introduction Group design process two aspect

• First is local design process where a single
  designer solves his/her own design problem.
• Second is coordination between members to
  coordinate their design plans and solutions in
  order to reach coherent local decisions by taking
  each others decisions into consideration

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ADN AN AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORK
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ADN AN AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORK Two major
theoretical views that underlie thecurrent
computer technologies for collaborative design
support

• data sharing that of data, formatting or
  representation, and algorithms for data storage,
  communication, and manipulation.
• This view is embodied in the development of
  shared database systems of product or process
  models and communication facilities
• The problem with this view is that it does not
  address the issue of how the shared information
  is related to design decisions. The notion of
  process is missing. As a result, available data
  or information may overwhelm the designers

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ADN AN AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORK Two major
theoretical views that underlie thecurrent
computer technologies for collaborative design
support

• Group decision support (GDS).
• Here the focus moves away from data itself to the
  process of group decision making, which often
  take the form of group meetings.
• GDS removes the communication barriers by
  providing necessary techniques for structuring
  decision analysis, and facilitating the
  formulation of a solution by directing the
  pattern, timing, or content of discussion

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ADN AN AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORK Two major
theoretical views that underlie thecurrent
computer technologies for collaborative design
support

• Group decision support (GDS) .
• While group decision-making is one aspect of
  collaborative design, the existing GDS framework
  does not explicitly address individual decision
  making processes and their various linkages.
• As a result, most GDSS tools fail to provide
  engineering design specific solutions and support
  other than facilitating mail exchange and
  telephone or video conferencing.

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ADN AN AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORK Two major
theoretical views that underlie thecurrent
computer technologies for collaborative design
support

• AND framework
• Our principal claim is that collaborative design
  is not merely about data, but it is about the
  processes of decision making that are carried out
  by multiple designers in specific organizational
  (functional and social) contexts and involves
  applications of specific design
• The ADN view is different from GDS in that
  instead of focusing only on group meetings, the
  ADN thinking emphasizes the roles of individuals
  decision processes and the links between those
  processes

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ADN AN AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORKThree Key
distinct action in AND framework

• 1) decision-making by individual designers using
  decision-based design process model,
• 2) coordinating between two designers, and
• 3)organizing among multiple designers using
  condition based negotiation model.

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ADN AN AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORKDecision
making

• Design starts from the need to find a solution
  for a design task (e.g. to design mechanical
  components for a car headlight).

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ADN AN AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORKDecision
making

• A task can be decomposed into sub tasks or a
  single solution by a decision.
• Design decisions are arrived at, by applying
  knowledge to generate options, collecting needed
  information to evaluate the alternatives, and
  selecting the best option
• The focus of our current research is to develop
  representation constructs of the various elements
  of the decision-making process

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ADN AN AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORKCoordination

• In ADN, design coordination is defined as
  interactive actions between designers
• Although designers try to make sub-tasks as
  independent as possible, it is almost impossible
  to avoid interactions among sub-tasks
• The need for coordination and the ways of
  coordination are key distinctions of
  collaborative design

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ADN AN AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORKCoordination

• Coordination action
• passing information between designers (e.g.
  design change notification),
• requesting certain action from others (e.g.,
  relaxing a specific constraint),
• negotiating over certain agreement (e.g.,
  resolving a conflict).
• To provide support for effective coordination, we
  must develop protocols for coordination and
  identify knowledge that can be applied to
  coordinate decisions

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ADN AN AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORKOrganizing

• The action of organizing defines organizational
  policy and norms for designers to follow
• Given only the individual design decision-making
  processes and their coordination links, there may
  be still cases that the designer makes the design
  decisions ineffectively
• Organizing is a distinct action to solve this
  problem of concurrent design

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ADN AN AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORKOrganizing

• The action of organizing defines organizational
  policy and norms for designers to follow
• Given only the individual design decision-making
  processes and their coordination links, there may
  be still cases that the designer makes the design
  decisions ineffectively
• Organizing is a distinct action to solve this
  problem of concurrent design

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ADN AN AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORK

• The important feature of our ADN framework is
  that it explicitly captures the decisions,
  coordination links, and organizational policies
  in the sense that it provides a structured
  representation of the concepts and actions as
  well as the mechanisms to support the actions

how can we develop effective models to capture
decision-making and coordination ?
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MODELING AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORK
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MODELING AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORK

• We introduce decision-based design process model
  to serve the following needs
• 1) to formalize design process information so
  that it can be recorded for later usage.
• 2) To define a design process information
  structure that can be used to identify and deal
  with dependencies
• 3) To provide a base ground for composing a
  negotiation protocol

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MODELING AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORKdecision-bas
ed design process model (DDPM )

• design is a process of generating information and
  manufacturing is a process of converting design
  information to physical products

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MODELING AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORKdecision-bas
ed design process model (DDPM )

• goal (or goals) is the objective function of a
  task.
• Attributes are measures to verify which option
  meets the requirements of task goals

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MODELING AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORKdecision-bas
ed design process model (DDPM )

• An Option is a set of possible sub-tasks and/or
  solutions, which can satisfy the goal(s) of a
  certain task

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MODELING AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORKdecision-bas
ed design process model (DDPM )
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MODELING AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORKdecision-bas
ed design process model (DDPM )

• Some examples of solutions are catalogue
  references, physical dimensions, product models,
  and shifting design responsibility to another
  designer.

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MODELING AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORKSeveral
implication

• First, in every design process, generation of
  option is one of the key points to consistent and
  efficient design.
• More design options create more flexibility for
  the designer and if one option doesnt work
  designer can easily evaluate another option.
• On the other hand, a designer might introduce
  dependencies and conflicts because s/he doesnt
  have enough information about other designers
  activities and each option may conflict with
  other designers design

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MODELING AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORKSeveral
implication

• Second, as the design process progresses, the
  number of dependencies between tasks increases
  exponentially and evaluating a design options
  gets more difficult (each design option should be
  checked with all tasks of the dependent
  designer(s) for conflicts).
• This phenomenon is called complexity in
  collaborative engineering context. In order to
  cope with the complexity, we first need to
  understand the origin of such complexity.
• The main reason for complexity in collaborative
  teamwork is dependency

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MODELING AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORKDependency

• Dependency is a case when the choice of selecting
  an option depends on the confirmation or the
  outcome of another option

Task 1 drilling
Task 2 making slot
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MODELING AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORKDependency

• Dependency is a case when the choice of selecting
  an option depends on the confirmation or the
  outcome of another option
• 1. Task dependencies this is a situation when a
  task should be finished before another task can
  begin (precedence relationship).
• An example for such dependency is in designing a
  car headlight, mechanical designer should define
  the geometry of the headlight so that the
  manufacturing engineer can decide on a suitable
  manufacturing process.

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MODELING AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORKDependency

• 2. Information dependencies when one tasks
  decision is based on the information provided by
  another task, there is information dependency
  between these two tasks.
• For example, in the car headlight design,
  mechanical designer should be informed about the
  driving conditions in order to make decision on
  headlight structure.
• 3. Resource dependencies these types of
  dependencies are most common to ensure the
  manufacturability.
• The problem is that one resource (machine or
  material) is either not available or not capable
  of fulfilling the requirements of the task

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MODELING AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORKCondition
based negotiation model

• Negotiation is the process of interaction between
  two (or more) parties to reach a mutual agreement
  to resolve conflicts and/or dependencies.
• we define the primitive negotiation cycle for CNM
  in concurrent engineering composed of four
  actions, namely, propose-gtagree-gtact-gtsatisfy,
  and a statement of conditions that need to be
  satisfied for the negotiation cycle to complete

act
satisfy
propose
agree
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MODELING AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORKCondition
based negotiation model
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MODELING AGENT-BASED DECISION NETWORKCondition
based negotiation model
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ADN IMPLMENTATION
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ADN IMPLETATION

• Negotiation is the process of interaction between
  two (or more) parties to reach a mutual agreement
  to resolve conflicts and/or dependencies.
• we define the primitive negotiation cycle for CNM
  in concurrent engineering composed of four
  actions, namely, propose-gtagree-gtact-gtsatisfy,
  and a statement of conditions that need to be
  satisfied for the negotiation cycle to complete

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ADN IMPLETATION
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ADN IMPLETATION

• User-interface agent is in charge of all the
  interfaces with the user (designer).
• User will interact with the user interface in
  each step of design process, receive results of
  negotiations with other designers, and input the
  design decisions to the agent.

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ADN IMPLETATION

• Design process-capturing agent is in charge of
  capturing the DDPM model
• Rule based engine and conflict detection agent is
  in charge of finding the possible conflicts
  amongst the selected options. This agent will act
  whenever designer evaluates a new option or when
  another designer in the team proposes a new task

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ADN IMPLETATION

• Negotiation agent is in charge of initiating
  negotiation with other designers.
• Once a conflict is detected by the rule based
  engine and is reported to the negotiation agent,
  this agent will find the corresponding designer
  and create an appropriate message
• Option space generation and storage agent is in
  charge of generating, editing and storage of the
  options.
• As mentioned in previous sections, for generating
  options, designer may use his previous knowledge,
  or pre-stored options stored in a database, or an
  auxiliary option generation tool

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ADN IMPLETATION
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ADN IMPLETATION
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ADN IMPLETATION
In this paper an agent-based decision network
framework (ADN) for collaborative design was
introduced. Two major aspects of collaborative
decision-making process (i.e. local
decision-making (DDPM) and condition-based
negotiation (CNM)) were discussed.