Abstract
Many of the issues in managing complex business processes are shared by the management of industry, manufacturing processes. Both operate in open, dynamic environments, and both have to cope with continually changing performance. Two issues are the choice of the basic software architecture to manage the processes and the adaptivity mechanism that enables that architecture to operate well when performance of the system is continually changing. The issues in choosing a software architecture for managing business and manufacturing processes are similar. Many of the issues in adapting a business process management system to changing performance are common to manufacturing processes, although there are some unique issues for complex business processes. Those common issues only are described, and an approach to dealing with them is discussed. The system has been trialed on emergent process management in a university administrative context.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Ivezic, N., Potok, T. and Pouchard, L. Multiagent Framework for Transitional Operations. IEEE Internet Computing, 9/1999.
Shen, W. and Norrie, D.H. Agent-Based Systems for Intelligent Manufacturing: A State-of-the-Art Survey. Knowledge and Information Systems—an International Journal, 1(2), 129–156, 1999.
Jennings, N.R., and Wooldridge, M.J. (eds) (1998). Agent Technology: Foundations, Applications and Markets. Springer-Verlag: Berlin, Germany, 1998.
PAAM′96, PAAM′97, PAAM′98, PAAM′99: International Conference and Exhibition on the Practical Application of Intelligent Agents and Multi-Agents.
Jennings, N.R., Sycara, K. and Wooldridge, M.J. (1998). A Roadmap of Agent Research and Development. In Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 1, 7–38 (1998) Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Brenner, W., Zarnekow, R. and Wittig, H. (1998). Intelligent Software Agents: Foundations and Applications. (July 1998), Springer Verlag.
Weiss, G. (ed) (1999). Multi-Agent Systems. The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.
Huhns, M.N. and Singh, M.P. (1998). Managing heterogeneous transaction workflows with cooperating agents. In N.R. Jennings and M. Wooldridge, (eds). Agent Technology: Foundations, Applications and Markets. Springer-Verlag: Berlin, Germany, 1998, pp. 219–239.
O’Brien, P.D. and Wiegand, M.E. (1997). Agents of Change in Business Process Management. In H.S. Nwana & N. Azarmi (Eds.) Software Agents and Soft Computing: Towards Enhancing Machine Intelligence. Springer-Verlag (1997).
Jennings, N.R. Faratin, P. Norman, T.J. O’Brien, P. and Odgers, B. Autonomous Agents for Business Process Management. Int. Journal of Applied Artificial Intelligence 14(2) (2000) pp 145–189.
Debenham, J.K. (1998). An Experimental Agent-based Workflow System. In proceedings Third International Conference on The Practical Application of Intelligent Agents and Multi-Agents PAAM′98, London, March 1998, pp101–110.
Müller, J.P. (1997). The Design of Intelligent Agents: A Layered Approach (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 1177). (May 1997), Springer Verlag.
Muth, P., Wodtke, D., Weissenfels, J., Kotz DA. and Weikum, G. (1998): “From Centralized Workflow Specification to Distributed Workflow Execution” in Journal of Intelligent Information Systems (JIIS), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Vol. 10, No. 2, 1998.
Finin, F. Labrou, Y., and Mayfield, J. (1997). KQML as an agent communication language. In Jeff Bradshaw (Ed.) Software Agents. MIT Press (1997).
Sutton, R.S. and Barto, A.G. (1998) “Reinforcement Learning” (MIT Press)
Riempp, G. (1998). Wide Area Workflow Management. Springer-Verlag, 1998.
Bussmann, S. Jennings, N.R. and Wooldridge, M.J. On the identification of agents in the design of production control systems. In Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (eds. P. Ciancarini and M. Wooldridge) Springer Verlag, (2001) 141–162.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2002 Springer-Verlag London
About this paper
Cite this paper
Debenham, J. (2002). A Multi-Agent Architecture for Business Process Management Adapts to Unreliable Performance. In: Parmee, I.C. (eds) Adaptive Computing in Design and Manufacture V. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-345-9_31
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-345-9_31
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-85233-605-9
Online ISBN: 978-0-85729-345-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive