Holonic software system for coordination of a fruit treatment facility
| dc.contributor.advisor | Basson, A. H. | en_ZA |
| dc.contributor.advisor | Kruger, K. | en_ZA |
| dc.contributor.author | Smit, Divan | en_ZA |
| dc.contributor.other | Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Engineering. Dept. of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering. | en_ZA |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-04-08T12:43:29Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-04-08T12:43:29Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024-12 | |
| dc.description | Thesis (MEng)--Stellenbosch University, 2024. | en_ZA |
| dc.description.abstract | The fourth industrial revolution, along with globalisation, has led industries to become more reliant on data for decision-making to maintain market share. The agricultural industry is no exception to these trends, particularly fruit treatment facilities, which increasingly rely on data for their operations. A large portion of the industry is still reliant on tedious human tasks, such as resource coordination and paper-based recording of vital information, which has a large potential for errors. Therefore, the objective of this thesis is to develop a proof-of-concept Facility Operation Support System (FOSS) based on a holonic systems approach, to coordinate resources in a fruit treatment facility. Coordination in this thesis refers to the resource allocation for facility tasks and the information management that goes with it. Holonic systems have the potential to be a solution to the challenges faced by fruit treatment facilities. Holonic systems separate software entities into holons to represent the physical world in the digital space, allowing them to have autonomy and cooperability. This thesis follows a design process for holonic systems; therefore, a requirements analysis is conducted to evaluate stakeholders' needs, to formulate a set of functional and non-functional requirements for the FOSS. An architecture is then developed, using holonic system design principles, to satisfy the identified requirements. The architecture uses the Activity-Resource-Type-Instance holonic reference architecture for the identification and classification of holons, separating them into activity and resource holons. The proposed architecture is implemented in a proof-of-concept FOSS for a case study, to evaluate the extent to which the architecture achieved the requirements. The case study is based on the Hortgro Phytosanitary Laboratory located in Stellenbosch. The Biography-Attribute-Schedule-Execution (BASE) architecture is used for the implementation of the architecture, using the BASE platform. The functionality and performance of the case study implementation is verified through several experiments. The results of the experiments highlight the ability of the implemented FOSS to satisfy the identified functional requirements, as well as the extent to which the FOSS satisfies the non-functional requirements. The results specifically showcase the ability of the FOSS to coordinate both human and non-human resources for facility tasks. Furthermore, the results show that the FOSS can reallocate tasks and rapidly schedule new tasks should a disturbance (e.g. equipment failure) occur. Following the verification, an overall evaluation of the FOSS concludes that the objective of the thesis is achieved. | en_ZA |
| dc.description.version | Masters | en_ZA |
| dc.format.extent | 122 pages | en_ZA |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/131911 | |
| dc.publisher | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University | en_ZA |
| dc.rights.holder | Stellenbosch University | en_ZA |
| dc.title | Holonic software system for coordination of a fruit treatment facility | en_ZA |
| dc.type | Thesis | en_ZA |