An Agent-Based Approach for Cost Evaluation Using ABC Method: Application to INOTIS Enterprise

Abstract

A more comprehensive definition of flexibility might be the ability of the enterprise to respond to variations more quickly, with lower costs, and less effects on system effectiveness. This paper develops a Production Control Decision Support System (PCDS) to assist in production control decisions. The proposed approach can help economic evaluation when product mix flexibility and the factors affecting flexibility are to be improved. It can also assist in making enterprise flexibility promotion decisions. The proposed model consists mainly of five components: Resource Agent, Cost Agent, COordinator Agent, Data Manager Agent and Maintenance Agent and a coordination protocol which ensures the exchange of messages among them. Agents interact to solve problems of resource allocation, conflict management, and better reaction during a resource’s failure. We use Activity Based Costing (ABC) methodology to calculate the production costs. ABC is a process-oriented method which gathers information from the processes; it can be used to give managers the ability to match the resource needs with the available capacity as closely as possible and hence improving productivity. The Cost agent is responsible of the cost calculation. INOTIS enterprise is selected as an application domain in this study.