In this project, the problems raised by the development, utilization and implementation of both hierarchical and heterarchical control architectures for manufacturing systems (MS) are studied and identified. The goal is to develop a hybrid control architecture where the lower levels are implemented through a heterarchical structure, using a new paradigm of distributed (knowledge) representation called “Societies of Agents”. The upper levels are structured into a hierarchy where the top levels provide orders for bottom levels, as usual. In terms of equipment and layout it is assumed that the shop floor is (physical or virtually) divided into a set of manufacturing cells, each one capable of producing a predefined set of products. A single agent represents each cell, which is capable of interacting within a society of similar agents.