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Supporting mass customization with agent-based coordination

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Abstract

Mass customization (MC) often implies a value chain with several spatially distributed actors that require extensive coordination. Agent technology is beginning to be utilized in supply chain management because of its ability to facilitate collaboration and coordination. Thus, agents are suitable for constructing MC environments and interfacing the various participants working together to archive the common goal of producing customized goods. This paper presents a multi-agent system architecture for MC, which takes into account the coordination problems that exist in MC. Because of asymmetric and incomplete knowledge bases, agents may be limited in global planning and scheduling. Therefore, we suggest a three-tier model of coordination and utilize partial global plans for addressing the coordination problem. Finally, we provide an example application and a prototype implementation for the MC coordination.

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Acknowledgements

Part of this work has been funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) within the research project “EwoMacs” (02PD1121). The authors would like to thank Yll Mujaj, Stephan Otto, Christian Loos, and Matthias Bernstein for their efforts in the prototype implementation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business Administration, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, 48309, USA

    Vijayan Sugumaran

  2. Information Systems II, Universität Hohenheim, Stuttgart, 70593, Germany

    Andreas J. Dietrich & Stefan Kirn

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  1. Vijayan Sugumaran
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  2. Andreas J. Dietrich
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  3. Stefan Kirn
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Correspondence to Vijayan Sugumaran.

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Sugumaran, V., Dietrich, A.J. & Kirn, S. Supporting mass customization with agent-based coordination. ISeB 4, 83–106 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10257-005-0006-5

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