Abstract: Introducing the traditional function- and process-based modeling frameworks of manufacturing system, the characteristics of software object, software component and intelligent agent were discussed. Then, a new modeling framework of manufacturing system on multi-agent basis was presented and implemented, which was comprised of software object dimension at autonomous levels, software life cycle dimension and multi-view model dimension. Based on the engineering methodology of agent-oriented software, the software system of multi-agent based framework of manufacturing system was developed. It is shown that software agent is more autonomous and intelligent than software object and software component, and the multi-agent based framework is suitable for open manufacturing system with distributed data and decentralized control. It will be a new approach to software system integration of manufacturing system.