Supply chain management represents a critical competency
in today's global business environment and has been the
focus of considerable, but mixed, information systems
research. The research described in this paper builds on
work in multi-agent systems to argue that intelligent agents
offer excellent potential and capability for supply chain
management, and contributes to discussion and theory
pertaining to electronic markets and supply chain
disintermediation. Argues that the knowledge associated
with intermediation work represents a key mediating
variable between disintermediating technology and supply
chain efficacy and discusses how intelligent agent
technology can be employed to both intermediate and
disintermediate the supply chain, attaining the cost and
cycle-time benefits of disintermediation without the
attendant loss of human knowledge and expertise. The
paper outlines a number of implications for theory and
practice in information systems, and it formalizes some
important research questions through a contingency
framework to help stimulate and guide future work along
these lines
