Supply Chain Management Using Multi-Agent Systems in the Agri-Food Industry

This paper focuses on Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) applied to supply chain management (SCM) in the agri-food industry. The supply chain (SC) analysed includes the suppliers, manufacturers and distribution centres, considering that orders are sent by clients to the distribution centres. Many original constraints, such as the capacity of the suppliers and the manufacturers as well as balancing stocks, are supported in our contribution. Our proposal also considers some practical issues in agri-food SCM, such as expiry dates. The aim of our method is to find a near-optimal solution that minimizes costs and time throughout the SC process, whilst favouring reactivity. An AUML model shows the functioning of the MAS in the SC. The results obtained regarding duration and costs related to the execution of client orders were compared with those obtained using a heuristic that solves the optimization problem in the dynamic case, and a mathematical model in the static case.

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