ITcon Vol. 16, pg. 727-744, http://www.itcon.org/2011/43

Organization – oriented multi – agent systems for construction supply chains

SUBMITTED:
REVISED: November 2011
PUBLISHED: November 2011
EDITOR: Turk Z.

SUMMARY:The agent paradigm has been used by several researchers to build several complex construction industry-specific tools ranging from e-business applications to cross-disciplinary communication systems, supply-chain management and contract administration. Because of the slow progress in the maturity of the underlying infrastructure, such applications relied on platforms such as JADE based on agent-centered techniques which focus on the defining communication and interaction protocols based on individual agents’ internal structure. An agent-centered approach undermines the potential for deploying a large-scale community of agents developed by different people. This paper discussed the potential for addressing this limitation using organizational abstraction to model multi-agent systems. It provides an overview of an agent-centered, JADE-based prototype system for construction specification and procurement. A critique of the agent-centered approach has been provided. The paper also reviews related work in organization-centered, agent systems. This is followed by a description of an organization-centered, JADE-based proof-of-concept based on construction products procurement requirements. The paper concludes with a discussion highlighting further work in the research. It specifically identifies the potential for enhancing the organization-centered MAS approach using ontologies.

KEYWORDS: Supply chain, e-business, intelligent agents, methodology, organizational abstraction

FULL TEXT: file.pdf (574,731 bytes)

CITATION:

Esther A. Obonyo, Dr, Chimay J. Anumba, Prof (2011) Organization – oriented multi – agent systems for construction supply chains, ITcon Vol. 16, pg. 727-744, http://www.itcon.org/2011/43