A multiagent approach for managing collaborative workflows in supply chains

Abstract

Due to sophisticated and frequently changing demands from customers, global competition and technological advances, the next generation advanced manufacturing technologies will rely on cooperation and collaboration of business partners to share costs, risks and expertise as no single company has all the expertise needed. To respond to these challenges, development of an effective scheme for managing collaborative workflows is required. In this paper, we propose a framework to achieve coherent and consistent workflows that can meet order requirements based on multi-agent systems (MAS). Scheduling collaborative workflow is a challenging problem due to the computational complexity involved, distributed architecture and dependency of different partners' workflows. We propose an approach that combines MAS, contract net protocol, workflow models and optimization theories. We have implemented a prototype system based on industrial standards, including FIPA and the Petri net workflow specification model. Our solution algorithm has been developed based on transformation of the workflow model to optimization models to find the solutions.