Integrated Scheduling System Of Continuous Casting-Hot Rolling Based On Multi-Agent

Production scheduling is the core module of Manufacturing Executive System (MES) that is playing an important role in modern industry. The objective of production scheduling is to determine the process order and its related working time under some constraints of techniques and resources, which make efforts to pursue a high production efficiency, low manufacture period and low production cost.Continuous casting - hot rolling integrated process is an important production unit in steel industry, its production scheduling problems makes a significant influence on the manufacturing efficiency and economic profits of whole steel enterprise. The practical production process of continuous casting-hot rolling strip in Shanghai BaoSteel Co., Ltd. is taken into account in this paper, and the production process of continuous casting-hot rolling strip is described. A Multi-Agent System (MAS) Model based on process equipments is established for integrated scheduling of continuous casting-hot rolling in order to increase the optimal performance of integrated scheduling and save energy resources. In this model, the production process consists of 6 agents, which are User Agent, Continuous Caster Agent, Slab Yard Agent, Heat Preservation Pit Agent, Heating Furnace Agent and Hot Strip Mill Agent. The detail functions and tasks of each of these agents are illustrated, and the cooperation relationships between the 6 agents are demonstrated in this paper.Integrated scheduling system of continuous casting-hot rolling is designed and developed with the technology of ASP.NET. The practical application effects are briefly shown that how this system runs based on the production data. The real result shows that the proposed MAS effectively increase the hot charge ratio of rolling process and saves the energy resources.