This title outlines when agent-based systems are appropriate, enumerates techniques to decompose a problem into entities that can be modeled as agents, provides a step-by-step guide to implementation, and offers hints for using simulation to design the system. Practical, applicative, and thoroughly modern, this text provides all the tools necessary for implementing an extremely flexible, robust, adaptive, and fault-tolerant manufacturing system. This is the perfect reference for AI researchers, industrial manufacturing engineers, operations researchers, and plant managers who wish to develop the most efficient manufacturing systems available.