Implementing a Business Process Management System Using ADEPT: A Real-World Case Study

This article describes how the agent-based design of ADEPT (advanced decision environment for processed tasks) and implementation philosophy was used to prototype a business process management system for a real-world application. The application illustrated is based on the British Telecom (BT) business process of providing a quote to a customer for installing a network to deliver a specified type of telecommunication service. Particular emphasis is placed upon the techniques developed for specifying services, allowing heterogeneous information models to interoperate, allowing rich and flexible interagent negotiation to occur, and on the issues related to interfacing agent-based systems and humans. This article builds upon the companion article (Applied Artificial Intelligence Vol.14, no 2, pgs. 145-189) that provides details of the rationale and design of the ADEPT technology deployed in this application

On the Use of Optimization Techniques for Strategy Definition in Multi Issue Negotiations

Στην παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία αναλύεται το πρόβλημα της λήψης απόφασης σε συστήματα αυτόματων διαπραγματεύσεων. Σκοπός είναι να σχεδιαστεί ένας αποδοτικός αλγόριθμος βάσει του οποίου οι πράκτορες λογισμικού θα δρουν σε ένα σενάριο ταυτόχρονων διαπραγματεύσεων.Οι πράκτορες δεν έχουν καμία πληροφόρηση για τα χαρακτηριστικά των αντιπάλων.Οι διαπραγματεύσεις πραγματοποιούνται με απώτερο στόχο την ανταλλαγή προϊόντων μεταξύ αγοραστών και πωλητών με συγκεκριμένα ανταλλάγματα. Κάθε προϊόν χαρακτηρίζεται από μια ομάδα χαρακτηριστικών. Για παράδειγμα, ένα προϊόν μπορεί να χαρακτηριζεται από την τιμή, από το χρόνο παράδοσης, κλπ. Κάθε αγοραστής αντιστοιχίζεται στις αυτόματες διαπραγματεύσεις με έναν αριθμό πωλητών. Προτείνουμε αλγόριθμους που προσπαθούν να επιλύσουν το πρόβλημα προσέγγισης αβεβαιότητας με τελικό σκοπό τη μεγιστοποίηση της ανταμοιβής των χρηστών. Η ανταμοιβή υπολογίζεται ως το άθροισμα με τα αντίστοιχα βάρη των χαρακτηριστικών. Εστιάζουμε στην πλευρά του αγοραστή και ορίζουμε μεθοδους για τον υπολογισμό των βαρών που επηρεάζουν τη χρησιμότητα του χρήστη. Πιο συγκεκριμένα, προτείνουμε μεθόδους για την αλλαγή της στρατηγικής του αγοραστή με στόχο να προσεγγίσουμε την καλύτερη συμφωνία. Ακόμα, χρησιμοποείται ο αλγόριθμος της θεωρία του σμήνους (Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm) ώστε μέσω της κίνησης στο Ν-διαστατο χώρο να συγκλίνουν οι πράκτορες λογισμικού στη βέλτιστη συμφωνία. Παρουσιάζεται, τέλος, ένας αριθμός από πειράματα για τις προτεινόμενες μεθόδους για να αξιολογηθεί η απόδοσή τους και να συγκριθούν τα αποτελέσματα με τη σχετική βιβλιογραφία. In this thesis, we deal with the problem of decision making in automated negotiations. We consider the case where software agents undertake the responsibility of representing their owners in such negotiations. The final aim is to provide an efficient algorithm in which software agents will act in a scenario of concurrent negotiations. Agents have no knowledge on the opponents’ characteristics. Negotiations are held for the exchange of products between buyers and sellers with specific returns. Each product is characterized by a set of issues. For example, a product could be characterized by its price, delivery time, and so on. The buyer is involved in concurrent negotiations with a number of sellers. We propose algorithms that try to solve the problem of handling the uncertainty with the final aim of maximizing the entities rewards. The reward is calculated as a weighted sum of the discussed issue values. We focus on the buyer side and define specific methodologies for defining the weights that affect the utility of the buyer. Moreover, we propose a methodology for changing the strategy of the buyer in order to reach the optimal agreement. We are based on the widely known Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm that is implemented by software agents’ movements in N-dimensional space to reach the optimal solution. We present a number of experiments for the proposed methodologies that show their performance and we compare our results with results found in the literature

Multi Agent Systems in Logistics: A Literature and State-of-the-art Review

Based on a literature survey, we aim to answer our main question: “How should we plan and execute logistics in supply chains that aim to meet today’s requirements, and how can we support such planning and execution using IT?†Today’s requirements in supply chains include inter-organizational collaboration and more responsive and tailored supply to meet specific demand. Enterprise systems fall short in meeting these requirements The focus of planning and execution systems should move towards an inter-enterprise and event-driven mode. Inter-organizational systems may support planning going from supporting information exchange and henceforth enable synchronized planning within the organizations towards the capability to do network planning based on available information throughout the network. We provide a framework for planning systems, constituting a rich landscape of possible configurations, where the centralized and fully decentralized approaches are two extremes. We define and discuss agent based systems and in particular multi agent systems (MAS). We emphasize the issue of the role of MAS coordination architectures, and then explain that transportation is, next to production, an important domain in which MAS can and actually are applied. However, implementation is not widespread and some implementation issues are explored. In this manner, we conclude that planning problems in transportation have characteristics that comply with the specific capabilities of agent systems. In particular, these systems are capable to deal with inter-organizational and event-driven planning settings, hence meeting today’s requirements in supply chain planning and execution.supply chain;MAS;multi agent systems