Research On Simulation System Based On Multi-agent For Steelmaking-Refining-Continuous Casting Push/Pull Production Processes

Steelmaking-refining-continuous casting is the key process of steel production processes. The production scheduling problem has always been the core of iron and steel enterprise production management. Effective production schedules can improve the equipment utilization, reduce the waiting time processes, and increase the capacity. With the development of enterprise informatization, especially with the wide application of MES, production planning and dynamic scheduling benefit from these systems in iron and steel enterprises. However, due to lots of uncertainties of complex factors in steelmaking-refining-continuous casting production process, the actual production process often does not match the scheduling plan. Therefore, it is necessary to simulate the scheduling plan in advance. By viewing the simulation results, the steel enterprise will be able to review that the plan is good or bad, check the bottleneck factor of the plan and rectify the better dispatching plan in time.This paper is based on the "planning and scheduling for digital simulation of MES" project which is a cooperation project of Northestern University Institute of System Engineering and Baosight software company. This paper establishes steelmaking-refining-continuous process simulation model, develops simulation system. The main researching work is as follows:1)This paper analyses steelmaking-refining-continuous casting production process characteristics, briefly instroduces the simulation principle which is based on multi-agent, reviews current achievements of the steelmaking-refining-continuous casting production process simulation;2)This paper puts forward steelmaking-refining-continuous casting process simulation model which is based on multi-agent and combined with push/pull hybrid production style. It describes steel-maker-scheduler agent, melting equipment agent, crane agent and cooperation model of agents;3) By object-oriented language, this paper develops the frame structure, the communication protocol, the consultation mechanism and the method of distributed multi-agent simulation system;4) Based on Visual Studio2008development platform, using C++language, this paper realizes distributed multi-agent steelmaking-refining-continuous casting simulation system. It uses the actual production data of three factories’to test and prove the simulation system. The results show that the model is right, the simulation system is reliable and this system can realize production process simulation and production data simulation. This system can be used as the tool to prove the rationality of the plan.