A multi-agent system architecture for business-to-business applications Online publication date: Fri, 27-Mar-2009
by Paolo Renna
International Journal of Services and Operations Management (IJSOM), Vol. 5, No. 3, 2009
Abstract: The e-business scenario, generally speaking, can be considered as an opportunity for enterprises to extend their market to a wide region. Moreover, Multi-agent Systems (MASs) are exploited to support the development of this opportunity among firms. In particular, the e-business and the MAS approach are very strictly linked, especially if we look at the Business-to-Business (B2B) applications based on the e-marketplaces. The paper presents a MAS architecture to sustain a catalogue-based e-marketplace by using workflow management methodologies for the design activities, the agent-based technologies and the implementation phases, and open source IT tools for the software platform development. Subsequently, the formalised e-marketplace is linked to a production planning algorithm to support the negotiation stage among the involved agents. Finally, a discrete event simulation environment is utilised to validate the proposed MAS architecture and, using an appropriate test model, to evaluate the performances of the negotiation protocol.
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Services and Operations Management (IJSOM):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:
Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.
If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com
Our Blog 
Follow us on Twitter 
Visit us on Facebook