An agent-based infrastructure for virtual enterprises using Web-Services standards

Nowadays, most products in the market are increasing unlikely manufactured entirely within a single company. Instead, a network of manufacturing companies, usually known as a Virtual Enterprise, is involved. Each of the companies becomes a node in the network to play a role in the value-adding process in the production cycle. In other words, a Virtual Enterprise (VE) is an ad hoc organization that combines the competencies of its partners and commits its resources flexibly to respond to business opportunities. To facilitate effective collaboration, suitable information systems that can enable VE partners to communicate and share data, information and knowledge across organizational boundaries are essential. One of the major obstacles towards achieving this goal is a lack of standardized technologies to allow partnering enterprises to publicise their services and expertise as well as locating and interacting with one another in a dynamic fashion. This paper proposes a multi-agent infrastructure to manage VEs and support XML-based agents coordination using a contract net protocol and Web Services standards. Feasible agent-based architectures for partnering enterprises are also suggested and illustrated.