A Scheduler for Extended Supply Chains based in a Combinatorial Auction

摘要

The theory of network coordination provides a theoretical basis to explain how companies can overcome organizational boundaries and constraints to jointly manage business processes across supply supply chains. In particular, this paper.focuses on Collaborative Scheduling,a collaboration process whereby Supply Chain trading partners activate on-line inter-firm coordination mechanisms to jointly plan key activities, from production and delivery of raw materials to production and delivery of final products to end customers. By discussing a case study of bathroom seller the paper provides a theoretical framework that contributes to explaining the relations between inter-firm coordination mechanisms and the characteristics of interdependence among the actors involved in the implementation. To automate the coordination process a generalized agent-based framework that uses negotiation to schedule events is presented. The allocatio of resources is based on a negotiating process until a compromise is found. An algorithm to negotiate based on combinatorial auction is used. The framework consists of a user preference model, an evaluation or utility function, and a negotiation protocol.