Agent-based e-commerce in case of mass customization

Abstract The Internet has created a tremendous opportunity to conduct business electronically. Innovative business concepts like virtual enterprises, supply chain management, one-to-one marketing, and advanced competitive strategies such as mass customization (MC) are supported by the Internet. In this paper, an approach is proposed to support distributed, logically integrated inter-company business processes, wherein complex and hard to standardize data occur, by applying e-commerce techniques paired with agent technology. Inter-company data exchange, procurement, and coordination of production in MC are improved by means of a multi-agent system. The specific business requirements of companies that cooperatively produce a specific good or service are discussed. Next, it is demonstrated that automated inter-company communications are necessary and that an agent-based system can automate procurement and inter-company coordination of production. Last, the system's implementation is described.

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