Negotiation processes within inter-organizational alliances

This paper describesthe negotiation component of E-Alliance, a software infrastructure defined for supporting negotiation activities in concurrent inter-organizational alliances. The E-Alliance’s main intent is to preserve the autonomy of organizations grouped in an alliance. The purpose of this work is to offer support for small and medium enterprises which cannot or do not want to fulfill a big contract alone. This approach is illustrated by a sample scenario where partners are printshops grouped into an alliance to better accomplish customers’ demands.negotiation, middleware, virtual enterprises, multi-agent systems, interaction protocol

A negotiation protocol to support agent argumentation and ontology interoperability in MAS-based virtual enterprises

The virtual enterprise (VE), which is formed according to some business opportunities through the collaboration of supply chain partners, is an effective way of business operation in the dynamic global market. This paper proposes an automated negotiation protocol for multi-agent system (MAS) based virtual enterprises. Firstly, to facilitate the functional integration of VEs, a MAS framework is developed to represent the whole life cycle of VEs. Secondly, a negotiation protocol supporting agent argumentation and ontology interoperability between agents is designed to handle the one-to-many negotiation scenarios in the VE context. The negotiation ontology is defined to combine the negotiation domain knowledge. Meanwhile, the ontology interoperability and agent argumentation mechanism is illustrated to ensure agents' mutual understandings. Finally, the proposed MAS framework is implemented upon the JADE platform. Simulation experiments are carried out to verify the agent interaction sequences in the negotiation protocol. © 2010 IEEE.published_or_final_versionThe 7th International Conference on Information Technology: New Generations (ITNG 2010), Las Vegas, NV., 12-14 April 2010. In Proceedings of the 7th ITNG, 2010, p. 448-45

A MAS framework for the negotiation based operational integration of virtual enterprises

The virtual enterprise (VE) is an effective way of business operation in the dynamic global market. This paper proposes a multi-agent system (MAS) framework for the negotiation based operational integration of VEs. Firstly, integrating the major VE operational activities into agent functions, a MAS framework is developed to represent the whole life cycle of VEs. Secondly, a negotiation protocol supporting agent argumentation is designed to handle the partner selection and conflict solving negotiation scenarios in the VE context. Finally, the proposed MAS framework is implemented upon the JADE platform. Simulation experiments have been carried out to verify the agent interaction sequences in the negotiation protocol. ©2010 IEEE.published_or_final_versionThe 4th Annual IEEE Systems Conference, 2010, San Diego, CA., 5-8 April 2010. In Conference Proceedings, 2010, p. 535-54

AGENT-BASED NEGOTIATION PLATFORM IN COLLABORATIVE NETWORKED ENVIRONMENT

This paper proposes an agent-based platform to model and support parallel and concurrent negotiations among organizations acting in the same industrial market. The underlying complexity is to model the dynamic environment where multi-attribute and multi-participant negotiations are racing over a set of heterogeneous resources. The metaphor Interaction Abstract Machines (IAMs) is used to model the parallelism and the non-deterministic aspects of the negotiation processes that occur in Collaborative Networked Environment

An environment to support negotiation and contracting in collaborative networks

During the last years, manufacturing and service industries faced a global change in the production paradigm. They have to continuously adapt their operating principles in reaction to new business or collaboration opportunities, where a natural reaction is a shift to a new business paradigm with the creation of strategic alliances for product or services development, but also for innovative and emergent business services design. On one hand, the process of creating such alliances can be rather simple if organizations share the same geographical and cultural context. But on the other hand, considering different conditions, there might be a low success rate in the creation of successful consortia. One known reason for such low rate are the delays resulting from negotiations in the establishment of collaboration commitments, represented by contracts or agreements, which are crucial in the creation of such alliances. The collaborative networks discipline covers the study of networks of organizations specially when supported by computer networks. This thesis contributes with research in this field describing the creation process of virtual organizations, and proposing a negotiation support environment to help participants in the negotiation of the consortia creation process and in the co-design of new business services. A negotiation support environment is therefore proposed and described with its main requirements, adopted negotiation protocol, conceptual architecture, models, and software environment. To demonstrate the feasibility of the implementation of the proposed systems, a proof-ofconcept software prototype was implemented and tested using some specific scenarios. This thesis work has been validated adopting a methodology that includes: (i) validation in the research community; (ii) validation in a solar industry network; and (iii) validation by comparison analysis

An agent-based negotiation model to support partner selection in a virtual enterprise

Session - MP-Fd Supply Chain Management & Logistics 4: cie182hk-1Conference Theme: Soft Computing Techniques for Advanced Manufacturing and Service SystemsIn response to the global business competitive environment, it is common for several companies to participate in a virtual enterprise (VE) to cooperate and collaborate dynamically to complete a common business opportunity. This paper proposes an agent-based negotiation model to support the partner selection process in a VE. To begin with, the VE partner selection problem is abstracted as a buyer-seller relationship such that the VE initiator is the buyer and the VE partners are sellers or vice verse. In the multi-agent system (MAS) that supports the proposed negotiation model, autonomous agents are established to represent various parties and functions of the VE. For instance, a buyer agent represents the VE initiator and the potential partners are represented by seller agents. Thus, the VE partner evaluation and selection problem is the process of finding the partners that are able to provide the buyer with the right quality products and services at the right price and at the right time. Evaluation and selection of partners is a typical multiattribute decision making (MADM) problem involving various issues that can both be qualitative and quantitative.published_or_final_versionThe 40th International Conference on Computers & Industrial Engineering (CIE40), Awaji City, Japan, 25-28 July 2010. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Computers and Industrial Engineering, 2010, p. 1-

Service-oriented middleware for managing inter-enterprise collaborations

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