Multi-Agent Supply Chain Modeling – A Re-Usable Component-Based Framework

A re-usable component-based framework is proposed for modeling and simulation of multi-agent supply chain systems. The framework facilitates study of both intraas well as interorganizational issues simultaneously across a supply chain (SC) paying due attention to the issue of private as well as public information. It utilizes a pre-developed library of organizational primitives, supply chain primitives, agent behaviours, and policy objects in order to configure a SC of interest. The framework architecture integrates several software tools and technologies for implementing the framework. It utilizes Java and Java Agent DEvelopment Framework (JADE) for implementing various agent components, behaviours, and policy objects, Protégé and Beangenerator for SC domain ontology development, PostgreSQL for database back-end support, Apache Ant for Java code compilation, and Eclipse as an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for facilitating integration and development. With the help of the libraries developed the user can quickly put together a multi-agent system (MAS) for a given supply chain and perform simulation and study coordination issues. The utility of the proposed framework is demonstrated through multi-agent simulation of Tamagotchi SC. The results of the study are presented and some of the research extensions being pursued are discussed.