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Integrating Multi-agent Simulations into Enterprise Application Landscapes

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Highlights of Practical Applications of Survivable Agents and Multi-Agent Systems. The PAAMS Collection (PAAMS 2019)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1047))

Abstract

To cope with increasingly complex business, political, and economic environments, agent-based simulations (ABS) have been proposed for modeling complex systems such as human societies, transport systems, and markets. ABS enable experts to assess the influence of exogenous parameters (e.g., climate changes or stock market prices), as well as the impact of policies and their long-term consequences. Despite some successes, the use of ABS is hindered by a set of interrelated factors. First, ABS are mainly created and used by researchers and experts in academia and specialized consulting firms. Second, the results of ABS are typically not automatically integrated into the corresponding business process. Instead, the integration is undertaken by human users who are responsible for adjusting the implemented policy to take into account the results of the ABS. These limitations are exacerbated when the results of the ABS affect multi-party agreements (e.g., contracts) since this requires all involved actors to agree on the validity of the simulation, on how and when to take its results into account, and on how to split the losses/gains caused by these changes. To address these challenges, this paper explores the integration of ABS into enterprise application landscapes. In particular, we present an architecture that integrates ABS into cross-organizational enterprise resource planning (ERP) processes. As part of this, we propose a multi-agent systems simulator for the Hyperledger blockchain and describe an example supply chain management scenario type to illustrate the approach.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://nodejs.org/.

  2. 2.

    Note that JS-son does not require a BDI approach; instead, beliefs can activate plans right away.

  3. 3.

    https://www.npmjs.com/.

  4. 4.

    For a comprehensive overview of agent platforms, see Kravari and Bassiliades [15].

  5. 5.

    Potentially, product quality could be dynamically adjusted as well.

  6. 6.

    Other concerns are performance [26] and security issues.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by the Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program (WASP) funded by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation and partially funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the Framework Concept “Industrie 4.0 – Kollaborationen in dynamischen Wertschöpfungsnetzwerken (InKoWe)”/managed by the Project Management Agency Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (PTKA).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computing Science, Umeå University, 90187, Umeå, Sweden

    Timotheus Kampik & Amro Najjar

  2. Signavio GmbH, 10787, Berlin, Germany

    Timotheus Kampik

  3. AI-Robolab/ICR, Computer Science and Communications, University of Luxembourg, 4365, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg

    Amro Najjar

Authors
  1. Timotheus Kampik
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Correspondence to Timotheus Kampik .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain

    Fernando De La Prieta

  2. University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain

    Alfonso González-Briones

  3. Poznań University of Technology, Poznan, Poland

    Pawel Pawleski

  4. HES-SO Valais Wallis, Sierre, Switzerland

    Davide Calvaresi

  5. Polytechnic University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain

    Elena Del Val

  6. National Laboratory for Energy and Geology, Amadora, Portugal

    Fernando Lopes

  7. Polytechnic University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain

    Vicente Julian

  8. Tecnalia Research & Innovation, Derio, Spain

    Eneko Osaba

  9. University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain

    Ramón Sánchez-Iborra

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Kampik, T., Najjar, A. (2019). Integrating Multi-agent Simulations into Enterprise Application Landscapes. In: De La Prieta, F., et al. Highlights of Practical Applications of Survivable Agents and Multi-Agent Systems. The PAAMS Collection. PAAMS 2019. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1047. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24299-2_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24299-2_9

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-24299-2

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