Negotiation-based task allocation in an open supply chain environment

Abstract

A supply chain is a complicated network for linking suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors. How to allocate the tasks efficiently is a key issue in supply chain management. The forming of a supply chain is dynamic in nature owing to the frequent changes of demand. This paper focuses on task allocation in the open supply chain environment. The aim is to develop a task allocation method for autonomous and self-interested agents, which have incomplete information about the open environment. The proposed mechanism is based on an automatic negotiation approach, which is used to allocate tasks by negotiating among the manager-to-bidder and bidder-to-bidder. The modification of contract net protocol (CNP) for manager-bidder and the protocol of the stochastic offer are introduced, and the relevant negotiation algorithms are also presented. The proposed method is a dynamic method for task allocation, which is applicable to the open environment without a central authority and permits some degree of reconfiguration. Reconfiguration is useful in dispatching new tasks or handling resource failures. © IMechE 2006.