Multiagent Based Global Enterprise Resource Planning: Conceptual View

In recent decade, the business of manufacturing and service organizations alike is strongly conditioned by unpredictable changes taking place in a global market. The question is how to provide efficient and cost-effective responses on time. Current systems such as extended enterprise resource planning (EERP) and supply chain management (SCM) do not provide adequate facilities for addressing this problem. This paper addresses multiplatform integration as a key factor for designing a novel kind of global enterprise resource planning (GERP) systems. The main idea is based on merging two separate approaches, i.e integrated agent-based network models of e-manufacturing systems and supply chains (EERP and SCM simulation platforms), and a field-based information network of intelligent agents. We examine each approach separately and give some clues how the merging of both approaches may contribute to the achievement of better simulation results. Key-words: Multiagent systems, Enterprise resource planning, Global enterprise resource planning, Supply chain management 1 This work is a part of the project Reg. No. BPD2004-ERPF-3.1.7-06-06/0014.