Self-organizing rolling mill

An automatically configurable rolling mill system comprising:

• a rolling mill having an entrance receiving billets at an input temperature, a set of rolls rolling a received billet to change the billets by a rolling diameter as moved at a rolling speed, and an exit discharging the rolled billet at an output temperature;
• a rolling mill autonomous control unit having:
• (a) an electronic memory holding data representing:
• (i) rolling mill constraints indicating constraints on the operation of the rolling mill;
• (ii) inter-machine constraints indicating physical operating parameters of the rolling mill dependent on operating parameters of other machines to which the rolling mill is connected;
• (b) an electronic computer executing a stored program to:
• (i) receive a job description describing a manufacture of a product requiring rolling mill operations;
• (ii) in response to the job description and bids by autonomous control units of other machines, transmitting a bid to the autonomous control units of the other machines describing performance of a task by the rolling mill within the rolling mill constraints and the inter-machine constraints;
• (iii) in response to counterbids received from other autonomous control units, transmitting a modified bid describing performance of a task by the rolling mill within the rolling mill constraints and the inter-machine constraints and satisfying the counterbid;
• whereby the rolling mill automatically determines its operating parameters for the manufacture of the product.