AGENT BASED APPROCH FOR SUPPLY CHAIN INTEGRATION AND ALSO FOR REALISATION OF VIRTUAL ENTERPRISE

BY M.S.UPPIN Under the Guidance of

Dr.S.S.Hebbal

Introduction

A significant trend in the present market oriented manufacturing is large product variety and frequent design changes which translates into low production volumes. Low quantity, high variety, small batch production requires a manufacturing system with a reasonably high flexibility not only in manufacturing equipment, but also in design, planning, scheduling and decision making.

Today's world market environment is rushing --towards its total globalization, and is characterized by ever increasing pace in production and decreasing product cycle times. Therefore businesses that are more responsive to market changes and more sensitive to customers needs are more likely to survive and thrive in such environment.

Global competition and rapidly changing customer requirements are forcing major changes in the production styles and configuration of manufacturing organizations. Manufacturing strategies are therefore shifting to support global competitiveness, new product innovation and rapid market responsiveness.

Fundamental requirements

Enterprise Integration: In order to support global competitiveness and rapid market responsiveness, an individual or collective manufacturing enterprise will have to be integrated with its related management systems and its partners via networks. Distributed Organization: For effective enterprise integration across distributed organizations, distributed knowledge-based systems will be needed.

Heterogeneous Environments: Manufacturing systems will have to accommodate heterogeneous software and hardware in both their manufacturing and information environments. Interoperability: Heterogeneous information environments may use different programming languages, represent data with different representation languages and models, and operate in different computing platforms.
Open and Dynamic Structure: It must be possible to dynamically integrate new subsystems (software, hardware, or manufacturing devices) into or remove existing subsystems from the system without stopping and reinitializing the working environment.

Cooperation: Manufacturing enterprises will have to fully cooperate with their suppliers, partners, and customers for material supply, parts fabrication, final product commercialization, and so on. Such cooperation should be in an efficient and quick-response manner.

Integration of humans with software and hardware: People and computers need to be integrated to work collectively at various stages of the product development and even the whole product life cycle, with rapid access to required knowledge and information.
Agility: Considerable attention must be given to reducing product cycle time to be able to respond to customer desires more quickly. Agile manufacturing is the ability to adapt quickly in a manufacturing environment of continuous and unanticipated change and thus is a key component in manufacturing strategies for global competition.

Scalability: Scalability means that additional resources can be incorporated into the organization as required. This capability should be available at any working node in the system and at any level within the nodes. Expansion of resources should be possible without disrupting organizational links previously established.

Supply chain.

A supply chain is a network of business units that enables the collection of raw material, its transformation into products and the delivery of these products to consumers through a distribution system. The supply chain of a manufacturing enterprise is a worldwide network of suppliers, factories, warehouses, distribution centers and retailers through which raw materials are acquired, transformed and delivered to customers supply chain encompasses not only those activities involved in the flow and transformation of goods from the raw material stage to the finished product, but also those which are associated with information flows, cash flows and product flows in an organization.

Most supply chains exhibit these basic characteristics: 1. The supply chain includes all activities and processes to supply a product or service to a final customer. 2. Any number of companies can be linked in the supply chain. 3. A customer can be a supplier to another customer so the total chain can have a number of supplier customer relationships. 4. While the distribution system can be direct from supplier to customer, depending on the products and markets, it can contain a number of distributors such as wholesalers, warehouses, and retailers.

PARTICIPANTS OF SUPPLY CHAIN

Producers Distributers Retailers Customers Service providers

Supply-chain management Supply-chain management is the strategic, tactical, and operational decision making that optimizes supply-chain performance. The strategic level defines the supply chain network; that is, the selection of suppliers, transportation routes, manufacturing facilities, production levels, warehouses etc. The tactical level plans and schedules the supply chain to meet actual demand.

SUPPLY CHAIN COMPANIES HAVE to TAKE DECISIONS IN FIVE AREAS:

1. ProductionWhat products does the market want? How much of which products should be produced and by when? 2. InventoryWhat inventory should be stocked at each stage in a supply chain? How much inventory should be held as raw materials, semi finished, or finished goods? 3. LocationWhere should facilities for production and inventory storage be located? Where are the most cost efficient locations for production and for storage of inventory? Should existing facilities be used or new ones built?

4. TransportationHow should inventory be moved from one supply chain location to another? When is it better to use which mode of transportation? 5. InformationHow much data should be collected and how much information should be shared? Partnering programs, such as vendor managed inventory (VMI), collaborative planning, forecasting, and replenishment (CPFR), quick response (QR), and continuous replenishment, increases the level of interaction between companies.

The Significance of Information Availability on Supply Chain Management

key issues that must be considered in the analysis of flow of the information in a supply chain. 1. Every organization participating in a given supply chain should achieve enterprise integration . 2. Within the supply chain companies should decide how much information should be shared with the other companies and how much information should be kept private.

3. Abundant, accurate information can enable very efficient operating decisions and better forecasts but the cost of building and installing systems to deliver this information can be very high. 4. There is a need to identify software development process which can support the management of heterogeneous or diversified information used for modeling a manufacturing enterprise. 5. Supply chain involves distributed intelligent manufacturing environment.

Agents in Manufacturing
An agent is a software entity that has a set of protocols which govern the operations of the manufacturing entity, a knowledge base, an inference mechanism and an explicit model of the problem to solve . Agents communicate and negotiate with the other agents, perform the operations based on the local available information and may pursue their local goals.

The common characteristics possessed by an agent are: Autonomy .

Intelligence .
Interaction. Reactivity. Pro-activity /goal-orientation. Learning.

Mobility.

Communication/cooperation. Character !

AGENTS

VIRTUAL ENTERPRISE !

Unlike the traditional enterprise, virtual enterprise is characterized by geographical decentralization of all the participators. That is, throughout the life cycle phases of the product development from customer order, the product design, parts manufacturing, assembly and marketing to customer services, the involved tasks are respectively carried out by different enterprises. It is such a networked collaborative manufacturing mode that decides heretical modeling pattern of virtual enterprise. Virtual enterprise

A virtual enterprise is conceived when a need is recognized in the marketplace and a business objectives are established.

The virtual enterprise is created when relationships are established that will eventually bring together the requisite competencies, when a strategy is crafted and a product is designed to meet the identified need.

The virtual enterprise competes when the product is offered in the marketplace.

After competing the enterprise is configured as assets and competencies are acquired and requisite processes and infrastructure are deployed to accomplish the objectives of the enterprise leading to Virtual Enterprise. The virtual enterprise than conducts operations to produce, delivers and supports the product to maximize stakeholder value. It concludes operations when terminating the relationship satisfies the objectives of the enterprise.

Virtual enterprise Formation

PROPOSED WORK

With this idea in the proposed research work it is planned to suggest a convenient and most suitable approach for the formation of effective supply chain and its management and also to realize the virtual enterprise.

Conclusion

The present work focus on the significance and benefits for operating as an integral part of supply chains for the modern manufacturing enterprises and also the importance of information availability/ sharing for the effective functioning of supply chains. In order to provide the necessary information technology support for the supply chains, the basic concepts and features of agent technology has been evaluated in order to determine their suitability of an agent based approach for the management of supply chains.

The present work also focus on the realization of virtual enterprise through the formation of supply chain as the initial step. Certain issues related to the management of information and application of agent based technology and object-oriented technology for the formation of supply chain has been explained. Further, with the help of two models of the virtual enterprise life cycles it is shown that formation of supply chain on these issues serve as initial steps for the creation of a virtual enterprise.

THANK YOU
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