InSyNET: Inter System Networking
The advanced Large Area Industrial Processes nowadays include a number of different components (systems) that jointly optimize the production process. Examples are: Energy production where the energy sources are incorporated into a system that uses different supporting systems for its optimization, such as communications (IoT), artificial intelligence for different learning mechanisms to predict weather and energy consumption, big data etc. Another example is a distributed collision avoidance algorithm for multiple dynamic vehicles moving in arbitrary dimensions. INS is doing research in the field of distributed intelligence and joint optimization of system of systems
Manufacturing Network Organization
Nowadays more than 50% of manufacturing companies worldwide are outsourcing activities that are not considered their core competencies. The motivation for outsourcing is to reduce production costs, intensify the focus on customer relations, making company reconfiguration more nimble and accessing management expertise that is not available internally. The aim of manufacturing network is to form the best collaborative networked organization of small manufacturers to optimize a production plan. The research methodology employed involves techniques such as interaction protocol development, ontology engineering, and principles from concepts such as the contract net protocol, the product-resource-order-staff-architecture, the auctioning process, agent-based modeling, and rule-based programming. INS is actively involved in the research in this field.