Gr¿nert, A: Software Agent Support of the Virtual Enterprise

Today, enterprises need more flexibility than ever before, but classic firms often fail this requirement. Therefore, a more flexible kind of enterprise evolved: The Virtual Enterprise. One reason why Virtual Enterprises are that flexible is their extensive use of IT. Yet, given the temporary character of Virtual Enterprises, existing software concepts are often not applicable. Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) may help to solve this problem. However, a concept that allows cooperating agents to support the management of the complete life-cycle of a Virtual Enterprise, is still amiss. This book attends to that gap. It identifies the management tasks of the Virtual Enterprise life-cycle, determines those that may be performed by software agents, identifies preconditions for their successful completion, and proposes an abstract architecture. The architecture defines the structure of a MAS for Virtual Enterprise life-cycle support, determines communication standards, interaction protocols and messages, and identifies ontologies, that have still to be elaborated.