Application of multiagent systems in project management

Abstract Global markets often require the coordination of firms across the world to gain maximum competence. The organization structure and the management of a firm tend to be project-oriented, and members of a project team are distributed throughout a network. In this paper, we use multi-agent systems as a technique to support project management in a distributed environment. Activity agents and resource agents represent activities and resources in a project. Service agents are automated experts for special project management tasks. This paper presents methods to schedule activities and resolve resource conflict by message exchanging and negotiation among agents. Finally, a prototype of project management tool is implemented, which uses a network of agents to provide services to team members distributed throughout Internet.