Two Special Cases of the Holonic Manufacturing System

Abstract

The concept of holonics manufacturing systems (with divided intelligence) is the most intelligent, autonomous, elastic, units collaborating with each other. The idea takes as a starting point the fact that the today's environmental circumstances are exceptionally unsettled; there is need for companies with the ability to respond quickly to maintain competitiveness. Holonic manufacturing systems (HMS) have been recognized as a paradigm to accommodate changes and meet customers’ requirements flexibly based on the notion of the holon, flexible and decentralized manufacturing architecture. Koestler proposed the word “holon” to describe a basic unit of organization in biological and social systems. A holon is an autonomous, co-operative and intelligent entity able to collaborate with other holons to process tasks. Autonomy and cooperation are two important characteristics of holons. In this study, we investigated a Holonic Manufacturing Systems for dry-working machine group.