Title: A multi-agent system architecture for business-to-business applications

Authors: Paolo Renna

Addresses: Department of Environmental Engineering and Physics, University of Basilicata, Via dell'Ateneo Lucano, 10, 85100 Potenza, Italy

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.

Keywords: multi-agent systems; MAS; agent-based systems; negotiation; production planning; discrete event simulation; business-to-business; B2B applications; e-business; electronic business; workflow management .

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOM.2009.024152

International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2009 Vol.5 No.3, pp.375 - 401

Published online: 27 Mar 2009 *

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