Title: Design of multilevel flow modelling-based decision support system by using multiagent platform

Authors: Xinxin Zhang; Morten Lind; Ole Ravn

Addresses: Department of Electrical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Elektrovej Building 326, Kgs. Lyngby 2800, Denmark ' Department of Electrical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Elektrovej Building 326, Kgs. Lyngby 2800, Denmark ' Department of Electrical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Elektrovej Building 326, Kgs. Lyngby 2800, Denmark

Abstract: For complex engineering systems, there is an increasing demand for safety and reliability. Decision support system (DSS) is designed to offer supervision and analysis about operational situations. A proper model representation is required for DSS to understand the process knowledge. Multilevel flow modelling (MFM) represents complex system in multiple levels of means-end and part-whole decompositions, which is proposed in this paper as basis for developing decision support systems. The aim of this paper is to explore the different possible functionalities by applying MFM to DSS, where both currently available techniques of MFM reasoning and less mature yet relevant MFM concepts are considered. It also offers an architecture design of task organisation for MFM software tools by using the concept of agent and technology of multiagent software system.

Keywords: multi-agent systems; MAS; multilevel flow modelling; MFM; functional modelling; decision support systems; DSS; knowledge representation; causal reasoning; agent-based systems.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPSE.2014.066692

International Journal of Process Systems Engineering, 2014 Vol.2 No.3, pp.246 - 259

Received: 29 Oct 2013
Accepted: 14 Jan 2014

Published online: 11 Jan 2015 *

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