Recently, in the manufacturing industry, changes in various environmental conditions and constraints appear rapidly. At this time, a dispatching system that allocates work to resources at an appropriate time plays an important role in improving the speed or quality of production. In general, a rule-based static dispatching method has been widely used. However, this static approach to a dynamic production environment with uncertainty leads to several challenges, including decreased productivity, delayed delivery, and lower operating rates, etc. Therefore, a dynamic dispatching method is needed to address these challenges. This study aims to develop a reinforcement learning-based dynamic dispatching system, in which dispatching agents learn optimal dispatching rules for given environmental states. The state space represents various information such as WIP(work-in-process) and inventory levels, order status, machine status, and process status. A dispatching agent selects an optimal dispatching rule that considers multiple objectives of minimizing total tardiness and minimizing the number of setups at the same time. In particular, this study targets a multi-area manufacturing system consisting of a flow-shop area and a cellular-shop area. Thus, in addition to the dispatching agent that manages inputs to the flow-shop, a dispatching agent that manages transfers from the flow-shop to the cellular-shop is also developed. These two agents interact closely with each other. In this study, an agent-based dispatching system is developed and the performance is verified by comparing the system proposed in this study with the existing static dispatching method.

세계무역기구(WTO : World Trade Organization)를 설립된 이후 무역은 세계화가 되고, WTO에서 무역 장벽을 낮춰 국가 간의 경제 교류가 점점 증가하면서 국제적인 물류 시스템이 필요하게 되었다. 원가를 절감하기 위해 대랑 수송 수판으로 컨테이너선을 이용하면서 대형 컨테이너 선사들은 국제적인 물류 시스템의 대안으로 기업에게 화물추적 정보시스템의 제공이나 장비, 기기 관리를 위한 정보시스템 네트워크를 구축하여 자동화 시스템을 도입했다. 컨테이너 터미널 자동화를 위해 본 논문에서는 수시로 변경되는 정보를 인식하여 에이전트간의 정보교환을 위해 유동적으로 대처할 수 있는 XML(eXtensive Markup Language)과 JMS(Java Message Service)를 이용한 멀티에이전트간의 통신모델을 제안했다. 이 논문은 기존의 자동화한 컨테이너 터미널 시스템 사례와 자동화 시스템을 개발하는데 어려움, 컨테이너 터미널 시스템이 요구하는 통신과 자동화에 대하여 분석하였다.