A Methodology of An Agent-Based Virtual Enterprise Information Systems Integration

• Main Authors: Ya-Tai Lin, 林亞泰
• Other Authors: Shang-Wei Changchien
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2002
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/79130791468199449252

碩士 === 朝陽科技大學 === 資訊管理系碩士班 === 90 === Virtual Enterprise (VE) is a customer-oriented flexible organization which collaborates member companies’ core competence, by using information technology and computer networks to dynamically link the distributed resources. With such a flexible and cooperative organizational structure, companies can share the resources and risks to gain competitiveness with quick response to market change and industry needs. The challenge for constructing a VE is that members ought to agilely and flexibly develop a collaborative operating environment, and all the associated inter-company workflows and integration technology. This research proposes an agent-based information systems integration infrastructure for a VE, by taking advantage of the agent’s capabilities of communication, collaboration, and mobility. A workflow modeling method was also developed for dynamic change and ease of maintenance. A dispatched mobile agent carries out access/retrieval or file processing tasks at distributed hosts according to the workflow assigned to it. The workflows, which are modeled using object-oriented technology, in the database can be retrieved via an algorithm that further intelligently assigns tasks to multiple agents concurrently to reduce the workflow total time span. In addition, data mining technique is employed to generate the dispatching rules from genetic algorithm solutions for dynamic scheduling in accordance with the characteristics of an agent-based system. A prototype system has been implemented on a variety of operating systems to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed agent-based integration infrastructure for a VE to accomplish the goals of satisfying various customers’ needs and agile manufacturing.