An Agent-based Optimization Approach for Distributed Project Scheduling in Supply Chain with Partial Information Sharing

This paper focuses on the optimization problem of distributed project scheduling in the supply chain network which is made up of order manager, service brokers and service suppliers. Based on the initial scheduling by bids of service brokers, we present a heuristic approach with agent negotiation mechanism for the problem. The approach seeks optimal schedule by distributed negotiations, which apply the agent negotiation mechanism and share limited information, between order manager and brokers. Computational experiments show the approach is effective with good optimization performance.