The research of holonic and agent-based systems is developing very rapidly. We see an increased interest of the IEEE System, Man and Cybernetics Society, especially its Technical Committee on Distributed Intelligent Systems which leverages the experience gathered by the members of the former Ho- nic Manufacuting Systems (HMS) consortium.

and Motivation.- Holonic Rationale and Self-organization on Design of Complex Evolvable Systems.- Service-Oriented Agents for Collaborative Industrial Automation and Production Systems.- Usability of Multi-agent Based Control Systems in Industrial Automation.- Knowledge-Centered Approaches.- An Organizational Knowledge Ontology for Automotive Supply Chains.- Semantic Extension of Agent-Based Control: The Packing Cell Case Study.- Product Design Network Self-contextualization: Enterprise Knowledge-Based Approach and Agent-Based Technological Framework.- Selected Theoretical Aspects.- Collaboration of Metaheuristic Algorithms through a Multi-Agent System.- Functional Integrity of Multi-agent Computational System Supported by Component-Based Implementation.- On the Empirical Evaluation of an Interdisciplinary Framework for Automated Negotiation.- MAS Scheduling and Simulation.- A Decentralized Scheduling Policy for a Dynamically Reconfigurable Production System.- A Study on Real-Virtual Interaction Method for Production Scheduling Using Model Plant.- Using an Agent-Supported Simulation Environment for Intelligent Manufacturing Systems.- A Study on Real-Time Scheduling for Holonic Manufacturing Systems – Determination of Utility Values Based on Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning.- MAS Control.- An Open-Control Concept for a Holonic Multiagent System.- Plan, Commit, Execute Protocol in Multi-agent Systems.- Distributed Sensing and Control Architecture for Automotive Factory Automation.- MAS-Based Cooperative Control for Biotechnological Process-A Case Study.- Design and Implementation of LabVIEW-Based IEC61499 Compliant Device.- Holonic Systems for Manufacturing.- Holonic-Based Environment for Solving Transportation Problems.- Holonic Manufacturing Paint Shop.- Developmentof a Holonic Free-Roaming AGV System for Part Manufacturing.- Safety Discrete Event Models for Holonic Cyclic Manufacturing Systems.- A Holonic Chain Conveyor Control System: An Application.- MAS and Holonic Applications.- A Multiagent System for Self-organisation of an 802.11 Mesh Network.- Mobility Model for Tactical Networks.- Holonic Modelling of Large Scale Geographic Environments.- Holonic Models for Traffic Control Systems.- A Multi-Agent System for the Pay-As-You-GO (PAYGO) Social Security Scheme.- Contract Monitoring in Agent-Based Systems: Case Study.- A Multi-agent Scheduler for Rent-a-Car Companies.- A Framework for Multi Robot Guidance Control.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Industrial Applications of Holonic and Multi-Agent Systems, HoloMAS 2009, held in Linz, Austria, August 31 - September 2, 2009. The 31 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 47 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on introduction & motivation, knowledge-centered approaches, selected theoretical aspects, MAS scheduling & simulation, holonic systems for manufacturing, and MAS & holonic applications.