Contribution of Multi-agent Systems in Virtual Enterprises

Complex information systems traditionally were functionally structured having clear purpose in mind and the requirements were also stable. But now day’s changes occur seldom, that’s why it is require having organizations that must be flexible, adaptive as well as dynamic too. Today many enterprises are aligned together to share their skills, core competencies in order to better respond to business opportunities. In this concern, A “Virtual Enterprise” is a temporary alliance of enterprises that cooperatively work together to share skills or core competencies and resources in order to better respond to business opportunities, and whose cooperation relies on computer networks and a cooperative, yet distributed information systems architecture. The challenges in today’s global market are flexibility and fast reaction to customer requests. To cope up with these requirements there is a need for intelligent adaptive planning and control systems. The multi-agent system approach offers favorable prospects for appropriate solutions. A multi-agent system is a loosely coupled network of problem-solver entities that work together to find answers to problems that are beyond the individual capabilities or knowledge of each entity. This paper will explain the concept of Virtual Enterprises in today’s world of business, characteristics of virtual organization, Lifecycle, The role of individual agent in Virtual Enterprise, structure of agent, concept of multi-agent systems in virtual Enterprises, Limitations.