Flexible Decision Support in Dynamic Interorganizational Networks

35 Pages Posted: 10 Dec 2008

See all articles by John Collins

John Collins

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

Wolfgang Ketter

University of Cologne - Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences; Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) - Department of Technology and Operations Management; Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM)

Maria Gini

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities - Computer Science and Engineering

Date Written: May 12, 2008

Abstract

We present the design of a service oriented architecture which facilitates flexible managerial decision making in dynamic business networks. We have implemented and tested this architecture in the MinneTAC trading agent, which is designed to compete in the Trading Agent Competition for Supply Chain Management (Collins et al., 2005). Our design enables managers to decompose decision behaviors into separate, configurable components, and allows dynamic construction of analysis and modeling tools from small, single-purpose 'evaluator' services. The result of our design is that the network can easily be configured to test a new theory and analyze the impact of various approaches to elements of the agent's decision processes, such as procurement, sales, production, and inventory management. Additionally we describe visualizers that allow managers to see and manipulate the configuration of the network, and to construct economic dashboards that can display the current and historical state of any node in the network.

Keywords: intelligent agents, decision support systems, business networks, human-agent interaction, service composition

JEL Classification: L15, O32, M

Suggested Citation

Collins, John and Ketter, Wolfgang and Gini, Maria L, Flexible Decision Support in Dynamic Interorganizational Networks (May 12, 2008). ERIM Report Series Reference Number ERS-2008-082-LIS, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1313510

John Collins (Contact Author)

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities ( email )

420 Delaware St. SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455
United States

Wolfgang Ketter

University of Cologne - Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences ( email )

Albertus-Magnus-Platz
Cologne, 50923
Germany

HOME PAGE: http://is3.uni-koeln.de

Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM) ( email )

P.O. Box 1738
3000 DR Rotterdam
Netherlands

HOME PAGE: http://www.rsm.nl/energy

Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) - Department of Technology and Operations Management ( email )

RSM Erasmus University
PO Box 1738
3000 DR Rotterdam
Netherlands

Maria L Gini

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities - Computer Science and Engineering ( email )

200 Union St SE, #4-192
Minneapolis, MN 55455
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www,cs,umn.edu/~gini

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