MASCF: A generic process-centered methodological framework for analysis and design of multi-agent supply chain systems

Multi-agent systems (MAS) are becoming popular for modeling complex systems such as supply chains. However, development of multi-agent systems remain quite involved and extremely time consuming. Currently, there exist no generic methodologies for modeling supply chains using multi-agent systems. In this research, we propose a generic process-centered methodological framework, Multi-Agent Supply Chain Framework (MASCF), to simplify MAS development for supply chain (SC) applications. MASCF introduces the notion of process-centered organization metaphor, and creatively adopts Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model to a well-structured generic MAS analysis and design methodology, Gaia, for multi-agent supply chain system (MASCS) development. The popular Tamagotchi case was designed and analyzed using MASCF. The validity of the framework was established by implementing MASCF output of Tamagotchi SC using the Java Agent DEvelopment Framework (JADE). 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.