Multi-Agent Supply Chain Management: Design Issues for a Generic Architecture

The supply chain is a worldwide network of suppliers, factories, warehouses, distribution centers, and retailers through which raw materials are acquired, transformed, and delivered to customers. Supply Chain Management (SCM) is extremely important to the manufacturing and retailing industries. In recent years, a new software architecture for managing the supply chain at the tactical and operational levels has emerged. It views the supply chain as composed of a set of intelligent software agents, each responsible for one or more activities in the supply chain and each interacting with other agents in the planning and execution of their responsibilities. This paper investigates issues for the construction of such an agent-oriented software architecture.

Keywords:

Multi-agent systems , software agents , coordination , supply chain modeling , supply chain planning