Modeling dynamic management features of virtual enterprises

摘要

We investigate essential properties of virtual enterprises and the consequent modeling requirements. Agent autonomy is defined. Virtual enterprises are treated as autonomous entities built out of autonomous entities. Requirements are derived from two types of virtual enterprises, a repetitive and a one-of-a-kind production or service enterprise. Properties that need to be represented in virtual enterprise models include the dynamics of decision making, the negotiations among participants for the delineation of domains of autonomy, authority, beliefs and responsibilities, the mapping of organizational entities to decisional roles, the ability to identify and analyze a variety of conflict types and the existence of conflict resolution paths. These properties have to be analyzed by matching enterprise engineering tools. An ontological theory is also needed to systematize the concepts that must be supported by the protocol languages for parallel distributed planning, scheduling and control algorithms in the virtual enterprise.