A multi-agent system for autonomous supply chain configuration

This paper presents an agent-based framework for configuration of agile supply chains. The presented framework, referred to as Digital Manufacturing Market (DMM), is implemented in Java Agent DEvelopment Framework (JADE). In the DMM, supply and demand entities are represented by intelligent software agents. The DMM agents communicate and interact dynamically for solving a given supply chain formation problem. Mediator agents use their internal search and discovery algorithms to connect buyers and sellers of manufacturing services based on their semantic similarities with respect to technological capabilities and needs. Manufacturing Service Description Language (MSDL) is the ontology of the DMM that based on the Web Ontology Language (OWL). The novel aspect of this research is to demonstrate the first application of agent technology for supply chain configuration based on a formal ontology that encodes the manufacturing capabilities of manufacturing suppliers. In this implementation, distributed ontology segmentation and sharing is investigated as well. Experimental results are provided based on a sample of suppliers and customers from the contract manufacturing domain. Although the implemented procedure does not necessarily result in an optimal supply chain, it guarantees the technological viability of the resulting supply chain.