Software agents-enabled systems coalition for integrated manufacturing processes and supply chain management

Most business negotiations in supply chain and information exchange in manufacturing processes are heavily human-involved using proprietary data formats. The processes of negotiation and information exchange are usually time consuming and unreliable even in routine tasks. Software agents have been increasingly explored to improve the information flow and the decision-making process within networked manufacturing enterprises. In order to use agents in manufacturing applications, a software agent-enabled process integration framework for manufacturing and supply chain management has been developed and is described in this paper. The framework includes agent architectures, interaction protocols, message exchanges, an ontological engineering environment, business rules and knowledge bases, and databases. The initial implementation of the framework has been tested by a prototype multi-agent system in a steel product business network and a manufacturing network.