Modeling of supply chain: a multi-agent approach

Describes the development of an agent-based software system for assisting in decision-making regarding supply chain management and the efficient and effective use of electronic data interchange (EDI) in the automobile industry. Such a system can be applied to different types of industries with some domain-specific modifications. The core architecture is built around the concept of a software-based agent that is programmed internally to interact with other external agents in a pre-defined manner. We are developing a MIC (model-integrated computing) based supply chain management modeling environment. This environment allows domain experts to create models of the software agents to simulate and control the actual online negotiation processes. The modeling environment allows modeling of agent behavior, as well as defining agent-to-agent interaction scenarios