Multi-Agent System for Decision Support in Enterprises

Business decisions must rely not only on organisation’s internal data but also on external data from competitors or relevant events. This information can be obtained from the Web but must be integrated with the data in an organisation’s Data Warehouse (DW). In this paper we discuss the agent-based integration approach using ontologies. To enable common understanding of a domain between people and application systems we introduce business rules approach towards ontology management. Because knowledge in organisation’s ontologies is acquired from business users without technical knowledge simple user interface based on ontology restrictions and predefined templates are used. After data from internal DW, Web and business rules are acquired; agent can deduce new knowledge and therefore facilitate decision making process. Tasks like information retrieval from competitors, creating and reviewing OLAP reports are autonomously performed by agents, while business users have control over their execution through knowledge base in ontology. The approach presented in the paper was verified on the case study from the domain of mobile communications with the emphasis on supply and demand of mobile phones and its accessories

Multi-Agent System for Decision Support in Enterprises

Business decisions must rely not only on organisation’s internal data but also on external data from competitors or relevant events. This information can be obtained from the Web but must be integrated with the data in an organisation’s Data Warehouse (DW). In this paper we discuss the agent-based integration approach using ontologies. To enable common understanding of a domain between people and application systems we introduce business rules approach towards ontology management. Because knowledge in organisation’s ontologies is acquired from business users without technical knowledge simple user interface based on ontology restrictions and predefined templates are used. After data from internal DW, Web and business rules are acquired; agent can deduce new knowledge and therefore facilitate decision making process. Tasks like information retrieval from competitors, creating and reviewing OLAP reports are autonomously performed by agents, while business users have control over their execution through knowledge base in ontology. The approach presented in the paper was verified on the case study from the domain of mobile communications with the emphasis on supply and demand of mobile phones and its accessories

A survey of simulation techniques in commerce and defence

Despite the developments in Modelling and Simulation (M&S) tools and techniques over the past years, there has been a gap in the M&S research and practice in healthcare on developing a toolkit to assist the modellers and simulation practitioners with selecting an appropriate set of techniques. This study is a preliminary step towards this goal. This paper presents some results from a systematic literature survey on applications of M&S in the commerce and defence domains that could inspire some improvements in the healthcare. Interim results show that in the commercial sector Discrete-Event Simulation (DES) has been the most widely used technique with System Dynamics (SD) in second place. However in the defence sector, SD has gained relatively more attention. SD has been found quite useful for qualitative and soft factors analysis. From both the surveys it becomes clear that there is a growing trend towards using hybrid M&S approaches

Narratives of an outsourced information systems failure in a small enterprise

In this study we investigate a case of an outsourced information systems (IS) failure (OISF) within the collaborative partnership among asymmetric partners. A small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) is dealing with an independent software vendor (ISV) conducting a project of implementing an IS that fails. We used a narrative research methodology for our enquiry. In the construction of our narrative we followed the OISF framework as a theoretical touchstone. As a major conclusion we found that asymmetric collaborations with partners with inadequate managerial and technical IT capabilities are extremely prone to OISF’s. We showed that an outcome-based and fixed price contract is not an adequate instrument to conduct such a partnership and to avoid a failure

Narratives of an outsourced information systems failure in a small enterprise

In this study we investigate a case of an outsourced information systems (IS) failure (OISF) within the collaborative partnership among asymmetric partners. A small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) is dealing with an independent software vendor (ISV) conducting a project of implementing an IS that fails. We used a narrative research methodology for our enquiry. In the construction of our narrative we followed the OISF framework as a theoretical touchstone. As a major conclusion we found that asymmetric collaborations with partners with inadequate managerial and technical IT capabilities are extremely prone to OISF’s. We showed that an outcome-based and fixed price contract is not an adequate instrument to conduct such a partnership and to avoid a failure