Production monitoring linked to object identification and tracking - a step towards real time manufacturing in automotive plants

ProVis.Agent is the first agent-based production monitoring & control system for distributed real-time production monitoring. Its functionality is based on ProVis.NT, the proven object-oriented control system which monitors and controls e.g. the body, paint and assembly shops in DaimlerChrysler's automotive plant in Bremen, Germany. Forming an integral part of the manufacturing execution system (MES), ProVis.Agent for the first time allows to be integrated with other shop-floor related applications, such as body identification, worker information, sequence setup, etc. In this paper the authors show a case study of implementing agent-based technology to a classical field of automation and how to use it for interconnection of real time systems.