Specialization of active software agents in an automated manufacturing environment

An automated manufacturing environment, comprising:

• a plurality of manufacturing domain entities, including:
• a plurality of process tools;
• a plurality of preventive maintenance/qualification procedures for the process tools;
• a plurality of process resources employed by the process tools;
• and
• a plurality of lots for processing on the process tools;
• and
• a computing system, including:
• a plurality of machine agents for scheduling and executing activities on the process tools;
• a plurality lot agents for scheduling the lots for processing on the process tools and executing actions to facilitate the processing of the lots on the process tools;
• a plurality of resource agents for scheduling the utilization of the process resources by the process tools and executing actions to facilitate the use of the process resources by the process tools;
• and
• a plurality of preventive maintenance agents for scheduling and executing the preventive maintenance/qualification procedures on the process tools.

An automated manufacturing environment, comprising:

• a plurality of manufacturing domain entities, including:
• a plurality of process tools;
• a plurality of preventive maintenance/qualification procedures for the process tools;
• a plurality of process resources employed by the process tools;
• and
• a plurality of lots for processing on the process tools;
• and
• a computing system, including:
• a plurality of scheduling agents for scheduling activities for the preventive maintenance/qualification procedures, process resources, and lots on the process tools;
• and
• a plurality of processing agents for executing the scheduled activities.

A method for automated processing, comprising:

• instantiating a plurality of autonomous, active software agents associated with a plurality of manufacturing domain entities, the software agents being specialized by type of entity represented and function to schedule a first subset of the manufacturing domain entities for consuming the process resources provided by a second subset of the manufacturing domain entities;
• scheduling appointments for the first subset to consume the process resources;
• and
• executing the scheduled appointments.

An automated manufacturing environment, comprising:

• means for instantiating a plurality of autonomous, active software agents associated with a plurality of manufacturing domain entities, the software agents being specialized by type of entity represented and function to schedule a first subset of the manufacturing domain entities for consuming the process resources provided by a second subset of the manufacturing domain entities;
• means for scheduling appointments for the first subset to consume the process resources;
• and
• means for executing the scheduled appointments.

A computer-readable, program storage medium encoded with instruction that, when executed by a computer, perform a method for automated processing, the method comprising:

• instantiating a plurality of autonomous, active software agents associated with a plurality of manufacturing domain entities, the software agents being specialized by type of entity represented and function to schedule a first subset of the manufacturing domain entities for consuming the process resources provided by a second subset of the manufacturing domain entities;
• scheduling appointments for the first subset to consume the process resources;
• and
• executing the scheduled appointments.

A computing system programmed to perform a method for automated processing, the method comprising:

• instantiating a plurality of autonomous, active software agents associated with a plurality of manufacturing domain entities, the software agents being specialized by type of entity represented and function to schedule a first subset of the manufacturing domain entities for consuming the process resources provided by a second subset of the manufacturing domain entities;
• scheduling appointments for the first subset to consume the process resources;
• and
• executing the scheduled appointments.

A method for automated processing, comprising:

• instantiating a plurality of autonomous, active software agents, including:
• a plurality of machine agents for scheduling and processing operations on a plurality of process tools;
• a plurality of lot agents for scheduling and processing a plurality of lots on the process tools;
• a plurality of resource agents for scheduling and processing the utilization of a plurality of process resources by the process tools;
• a plurality of preventive maintenance agents for scheduling and processing a plurality of preventive maintenance/qualification procedures on the process tools;
• scheduling appointments for the lots for processing on the process tools and for the process tools to utilize the process resources;
• and
• executing the scheduled appointments.