Searching for Better Negotiation Agreement Based on Genetic Algorithm

Negotiation is commonly required in the pro- curement of construction materials to reach the final con- tractual agreement. In current practice, contractors nego- tiate with suppliers according to negotiators' experiences instead of extensive exploration of negotiable options and negotiators' preferences. Consequently, negotiators often reach suboptimal agreements, and leave money on the ta- ble. This research intends to help negotiators explore ne- gotiable options by developing a computer system, named C-Negotiator, using the genetic algorithm. This arti- cle also describes experiments conducted to determine how much money was left on the table on typical re- alistic construction procurements. The result shows that C-Negotiator's negotiation improved the joint payoff of the contractor and supplier from 1.5% to 9.8% compared with conventional human negotiation. The improvement may increase for more complex negotiation problems with more options and complicated preferences or for inexpe- rienced negotiators.

[1]  M. Bazerman.  Judgment in Managerial Decision Making , 1990 .

[2]  Mareike Schoop,et al.  Negoisst: a negotiation support system for electronic business-to-business negotiations in e-commerce , 2003, Data Knowl. Eng..

[3]  Jeryl L. Mumpower,et al.  The judgement policies of negotiators and the structure of negotiation problems , 1991 .

[4]  Colin R. Reeves,et al.  Using Genetic Algorithms with Small Populations , 1993, ICGA.

[5]  Kenneth de Jong,et al.  Adaptive System Design: A Genetic Approach , 1980, IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern..

[6]  David E. Goldberg,et al.  Sizing Populations for Serial and Parallel Genetic Algorithms , 1989, ICGA.

[7]  H. Raiffa,et al.  The art and science of negotiation , 1983 .

[8]  M. Tawfik Jelassi,et al.  A development framework for computer-supported conflict resolution , 1990 .

[9]  J. Freedman,et al.  Nonfinancial Motives and Bargain Hunting1 , 1995 .

[10]  Jim R. Oliver.  A Machine-Learning Approach to Automated Negotiation and Prospects for Electronic Commerce , 1996, J. Manag. Inf. Syst..

[11]  Lauri Koskela,et al.  The four roles of supply chain management in construction , 2000 .

[12]  Ali A. Shash,et al.  SUBCONTRACTORS' BIDDING DECISIONS , 1998 .

[13]  Gregory E. Kersten,et al.  Rule-based formalism and preference representation: An extension of negoplan , 1990 .

[14]  Kalyanmoy Deb,et al.  Accounting for Noise in the Sizing of Populations , 1992, FOGA.

[15]  Stan Matwin,et al.  Genetic algorithms approach to a negotiation support system , 1991, IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern..

[16]  Frederick E. Petry,et al.  Genetic Algorithms , 1992 .