A Multiagent Negotiation Based Model to Support the Collaborative Supply Chain Planning Process

Multiagent systems are inherently distributed and support well the modelling of organizational issues such as negotiation mechanisms and workflows. In this sense, a decentralized supply chain configuration process can be easily modelled as an information sharing processes where nodes (agents) collaborate, for example, in planning and decision-making. This paper presents a novel collaborative planning model for supply chain networks that supports a distributed negotiation process from a decentralized perspective. The hypothesis presented herein is that by collaborating in the information exchange related with the visibility of the demand plans, improvements on the total profit level of the supply chain nodes, and of the supply chain as whole, can be found.