Holonic Manufacturing Systems (HMS)

The goal of HMS is to attain in manufacturing the benefits that holonic organization provides to living organisms and societies, e.g., stability in the face of disturbances, adaptability and flexibility in the face of change, and efficient use of available resources.

The HMS concept combines the best features of hierarchical ("top down") and heterarchical ("bottom up", "cooperative") organizational structures as the situation dictates. This concept can preserve the stability of hierarchy while providing the dynamic flexibility of heterarchies.

Quick references -

Holon: An autonomous and cooperative building block of a manufacturing system for transforming, transporting, storing and/or validating information and physical objects. The holon consists of an information processing part and often a physical processing part. A holon can be part of another holon.

Autonomy: The capability of an entity to create and control the execution of its own plans and/or strategies.

Cooperation: A process whereby a set of entities develops mutually acceptable plans and executes these plans.

Holarchy: A system of holons that can cooperate to achieve a goal or objective. The holarchy defines the basic rules for cooperation of the holons and thereby limits their autonomy.

Holonic Manufacturing System (HMS): A holarchy that integrates the entire range of manufacturing activities from order booking through design, production, and marketing to realize the agile manufacturing enterprise.

Holonic Attributes: The attributes of an entity that make it a holon. The minimum set is autonomy and cooperativeness.

Holonomy: The extent to which an entity exhibits holonic attributes.

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