Title: Application of Data Mining and Intelligent Agent Technologies to Concurrent Engineering

Authors: Pericles A. Mitkas, Andreas L. Symeonidis, Dionisis D. Kehagias, Ioannis N. Athanasiadis

Addresses: Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece; Intelligent Systems and Software Engineering Laboratory, Informatics and Telematics Institute/CERTH, 1st km Thermi-Panorama road, 57001, Thermi, Thessaloniki, Greece. ' Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece; Intelligent Systems and Software Engineering Laboratory, Informatics and Telematics Institute/CERTH, 1st km Thermi-Panorama road, 57001, Thermi, Thessaloniki, Greece. ' Intelligent Systems and Software Engineering Laboratory, Informatics and Telematics Institute/CERTH, 1st km Thermi-Panorama road, 57001, Thermi, Thessaloniki, Greece. ' Istituto Dalle Molle di Studi sull'Intelligenza Artificiale, CH-6928 Manna, Lugano, Switzerland

Abstract: Software agent technology has matured enough to produce intelligent agents, which can be used to control a large number of Concurrent Engineering tasks. Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) are communities of agents that exchange information and data in the form of messages. The agents| intelligence can range from rudimentary sensor monitoring and data reporting, to more advanced forms of decision-making and autonomous behaviour. The behaviour and intelligence of each agent in the community can be obtained by performing Data Mining on available application data and the respected knowledge domain. We have developed Agent Academy (AA), a software platform for the design, creation, and deployment of MAS, which combines the power of knowledge discovery algorithms with the versatility of agents. Using this platform, we illustrate how agents, equipped with a data-driven inference engine, can be dynamically and continuously trained. We also discuss three prototype MAS developed with AA.

Keywords: agent academy; concurrent engineering; simultaneous engineering; data mining; intelligent agents; software agents; multi-agent systems; MAS; agent-based systems; PLM; product lifecycle management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPLM.2007.014278

International Journal of Product Lifecycle Management, 2007 Vol.2 No.2, pp.173 - 186

Published online: 28 Jun 2007 *

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