A communication protocol among agents for exchanging data in the extended enterprise

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

A communication protocol among agents for exchangingdata in the extended enterprise

Omar López-Ortega & Karla López de la Cruz

Received: 2 October 2009 /Accepted: 2 March 2010 /Published online: 20 April 2010# Springer-Verlag London Limited 2010

Abstract To compete in the current interconnected world,manufacturing companies shall explore varied forms ofcollaboration in order to maintain the creation of value-added goods and services. The extended enterprise is oneof the proposed approaches to improve collaborationamong individual enterprises. Such paradigm is based onthe fact that core capabilities must be shared by participat-ing firms so they can exploit jointly the best resources andpractices each firm provides. Nevertheless, data exchange isnot carried fluently due to poor coordination among thefirms. We claim that business processes help define thedynamics of data exchange associated to core capabilitiesbeing the basis to establish a communication protocolamong software agents. The resultant multi-agent systemcoordinates data flow among organizations. Agents aregiven autonomy and intelligence to make decisions regard-ing the data that is either needed or offered, as defined bythe corresponding business process. We present a casestudy to validate our proposal.

Keywords Business process . Communication protocols .

Agent programming . Extended enterprise

1 Introduction and problem statement

It has been claimed elsewhere [1] that the entire manufac-turing system incarnates a coherent and extended whole inthe context of the value chain. The extended enterprise isthus defined as a long-term agreement among individualand complementary industrial units formed to manufacturegoods in a well-defined yet evolving market segment.Companies remain separate legal entities that keep controlover their own systems [2] and resources while providingtheir own core capabilities (i.e., information about product,processes, and resources displaying superior performance).To facilitate data exchange in the extended enterprise, theuse of standardized data models has been proposed as asolution [3]. Nevertheless, we address two major obstaclesto exchange data associated to core capabilities fluently.

One issue refers to establishing coordination mechanismsfor requesting and providing information along the productlife cycle. We take advantage of business processes. Abusiness process (BP) is defined as either a chain of activitieswhose final aim is the production of a specific output for aparticular customer [4] or a collection of activities that takesone or more inputs and creates an output that is of value to acustomer [5]. Data exchange is pivotal for operating theextended enterprise because data represents both value-addedinput and output to design and manufacturing activities.

The supporting software for sharing and exchanging datais the second problem to overcome. Should informationsystems remain locally owned by the constituent compa-nies, communication is compulsory, for which stand-aloneapplications are not well-suited. Hence, a central unit mustpossess the ability to acquire company-specific data andpropagate it along the network. Multi-agent systems (MAS)are appropriate to achieve distributed information processing[6]. The application of agent technology to inter-enterprise

O. López-Ortega (*) :K. L. de la CruzCentro de Investigación en Tecnologías de Información ySistemas, Instituto de Ciencias Básicas e Ingeniería,Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo,Carretera Pachuca–Tulancingo Km. 4.5,Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexicoe-mail: [email protected]

K. L. de la Cruze-mail: [email protected]

Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2010) 51:383–396DOI 10.1007/s00170-010-2606-6

collaboration has also been devised by [7], where it hasbeen stated that both suppliers and customers are mutuallydependent on shared data and knowledge being vital thequality and volume of transparent data. The usage ofexisting agent technology has been discussed as a soundapproach to enhance data exchanging in the extendedenterprise [8]. Such claims are fully justified since agentscan request data, acknowledge its reception, process it, andtransmit new data to another agent that finds suchinformation valuable. In this scenario, messages utteredwith the Agent Communication Language (Foundation forIntelligent Physical Agents, FIPA-ACL) take the role ofinformation carriers. Yet, to coordinate the sequence ofmessages, a well-defined pattern must be devised. Wepropose a list of business processes to model the dynamicsof data exchange and a system of intelligent agents toactually request and provide information obeying theactivities defined by business processes.

To summarize, our solution to coordinating data exchangein the extended enterprise comprises:

1. Definition of a communication protocol among agentsmapping business processes.

2. Definition of a multi-agent system structure havingcentral processing of data and being distributed alongthe network of enterprises.

3. The underlying intelligence and decision-making capa-bilities associated to software agents.

The organization of the paper is as follows. Section 2presents related work on MAS and extended enterprise.Section 3 contains the models of the business processes thatwe suggest as the basis for coordinating data exchange.Section 4 is devoted to the multi-agent system (structure,communication, and intelligence). A detailed description ofthe case study is provided in Section 5. We conclude thepaper in section 6.

2 Related work

2.1 Business processes and agents

Several proposals to include agent technology for theextended enterprise (or the like) have been developed.Agents have been implemented for optimizing utilization ofresources in value-chain contexts [9]. A multi-agent systemevaluates capabilities of individual firms so an extendedenterprise can be shaped, exploiting standardized data models[10]. Production planning in an extended enterprise contexthas been tackled by implementing a multi-agent system [11].Similarly, ExPlanTech [11] integrates existing softwaremodules and wraps them into agents improving the planningprocesses because the system monitors the status of

suppliers and other collaborators. Information technologyhas been aligned with the activities that take place in anextended enterprise [12]. Web services and agents aremerged to execute inter-organizational business processes[13,14]. In [15], if a software agent receives requests forexecuting tasks, then it searches for possible contractorsand grants a contract to the winning bidder among a list ofmember agents offering their capabilities. The multi-agentapproach has been explored to acquire data from heteroge-neous information systems [16], integrating data sources ofproducts and processes. In an approach to merge businessprocesses using an agent-oriented programming, agentssynchronize the execution of BPs activities [17]. Similarly,a business protocol specifies messages exchanged amongtwo or more interacting agents that behave as autonomousbusiness partners [18]. It has been stated that agent-basedcooperation among enterprises offers more resilience andagility in competitive environments [19].

2.2 Information sharing models in the extended enterprise

It is widely recognized that information sharing is a pivotalissue should individual enterprises decide to cooperate inorder to remain competitive. This topic possesses severaledges within the extended enterprise context: cooperationmodels, partner selection, interoperability of informationsystems, and market analysis to name but a few. As forcooperation models, symbiosis theory has been proposed asinspiration to draw relationships between individual enter-prises trying to obtain mutual benefits [20]. It has beenclaimed by [21] that the complexities of the extendedenterprise can be minimized by employing fractal modelswith self-organizing policies, recursion, and iteration. Theuse on Intranets have been proposed as a framework tofacilitate cooperation of heterogeneous information systemsand make publicly available core competencies [22]. Cross-enterprise colaboration can be seen as a problem of gridformation according to [23]. It is claimed that gridmanufacturing may provide more services to the extendedenterprise while being more flexible in their formation. Itfavors the use of a process-oriented framework to facilitatecooperation among enterprises [24]. When companiesdecide to open their information systems, it is compulsoryto guarantee that the right users will employ the right data.On this subject, a formal access model is proposed in [25].

Interactions among manufacturers and suppliers arecomplex. These types of processes can benefit frominformation sharing and cooperation models as depicted in[26]. It proposes the creation and use of ontologies tohomogenize concepts along the network of enterprises andfacilitate data exchange [27]. Interactions among individualenterprises have been taken from the CIMOSA architecture.Those interactions have been modeled with Petri nets and

384 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2010) 51:383–396

then they have been implemented on web-based systems[28]. A negotiation scheme among self-interested individualenterprises is presented in [29]. This is useful when itcomes to decide on what partner offers a high reward forthe engagement to materialize. An Ant colony algorithm toselect partners is described in [30], transportation costsbeing the selected criteria.

A comprehensive list of product features is pivotal toestablish manufacturing processes, material, and suppliers.We perform this activity with a simplified version of thequality function deployment method; however, someauthors present variations of the method, like [31]. Yet,the aim is to gather market data and process it so a productcan be conceived and realized.

2.3 Discussion

All the related initiatives address relevant ideas revolvingaround cooperation and data exchange within the extendedenterprise; nevertheless, some important aspects have beenoverseen. First, cooperation protocols are not set. Ourproposal defines communication protocols at differentlevels and for different purposes. Secondly, it has not beenentirely defined what sequence of events and what datamust be exchanged among the participating firms. Byestablishing business processes, we make explicit both thesequence of activities and the information needed duringevery interaction. Third, our approach facilitates decisionmaking for material and enterprise selection. Altogether, wepropose an advantageous manner to define and automate aseries of activities along the extended enterprise. It is ourcontention that the establishment of business processes

promotes definition of common practices and explicitknowledge for operating an extended enterprise. Multi-agent systems provide communication and intelligence sothe data exchange is performed more coordinately along thenetwork. We describe our proposal in the following sections.

3 Business processes for the extended enterprise

BPs for the extended enterprise defines sequences ofactions to achieve a design and manufacturing goal. Eventhough any list of BPs might be considered neitherdefinitive nor complete, our proposed set is broad enoughto clarify what interactions take place in a distributedmanufacturing environment.

The business process reference model depicted in [32] isour chosen modeling framework. It defines a business

Table 1 Setting technical parameters for raw material

Businessprocess ID

Extended enterprise business process 1

BPT name Setting technical parameters for raw material

Objective To obtain raw material along with the technicalrequirements it must fulfill to comply withproduct design specifications

Inputs Product identification

Qualitative functions

Outputs Raw material and technical parameters

Performanceattributes

Material type

Fulfillment of qualitative functions

setting technical parameters for raw

material

formalizing core manufacturing

resources

generating the extended enterprise Shape

configuring an extended enterprise

executive system

coordinating production planning

scheduling manufacturing

processes

tracking manufacturing

processes

adapting to unforseen circumstances

back-feeding clientsí new requirements

Business Process Types

tracking customer demands

Fig. 1 Business process typesfor the extended enterprise

Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2010) 51:383–396 385

process type (BPT) to represent BPs at a general level.Then, business process variations (BPVs) refer to special-izations of business process types. Finally, business sub-processes contain sequences of actions to implement abusiness process type. We propose the following set ofbusiness process types (see Fig. 1):

1. setting technical parameters for raw material2. formalizing core manufacturing resources3. generating the extended enterprise Shape4. configuring an extended enterprise executive system5. coordinating production planning6. scheduling manufacturing processes

7. tracking manufacturing processes along the extendedenterprise

8. adapting to unforeseen circumstances9. tracking customer demands

10. back-feeding clients’ new requirements

We envision a cycle of business process types thatencapsulates a product life cycle. The launching BPT iscalled “setting technical parameters for raw material”,which restarts when clients’ newer requirements are inputagain. The interaction between any pair of BPTs enforcesthe actors (i.e., agents) to confirm what data is beingexchanged versus what data has been solicited. Validation

Receive Order Specifications

Evaluate qualitative functions

Determine technical requirements

Extended Enterprise Business Process Level 1 Business Process Type

Setting technical parameters for raw material

Determine raw material and

technical parameters

Fig. 2 Business process type:setting technical parameters forraw material

Formalizing core manufacturing resources

Receive technical parameters of raw

material

Determine technical specifications of

resources

Determine processes and tools


Fig. 3 Business process type:formalizing core manufacturingresources


of data source and message carrier (the actual performativeused, taken from the FIPA-ACL) is also required.

Table 1 describes the major elements associated to BPT“setting technical parameters for raw material”, whileFig. 2 presents its corresponding BPVs.

In a similar fashion, Fig. 3 is a graphical representationof BPT “formalizing core manufacturing resources”, whosedescription is presented in Table 2. The last BPT wedescribe in this paper is termed “generating the extendedenterprise shape” (Fig. 4), whose corresponding descrip-tion is presented in Table 3. The “shape” of the extendedenterprise is a concept being defined in [3].

The specification of business process types completesthe modeling of activities, actors, and data to exchange. Toactually implement such interactions, a multi-agent systemis devised of which details are given next.

4 Design of the multi-agent system

The multi-agent system is illustrated in Fig. 5. It follows afractal-like structure where two layers can be distinguished.The upper layer (UL) is comprised by coordinator agent,product agent, organization agent, manufacturing agent, and

resource Agent. The lower layer (LL), in contrast, lacks acoordinator. The agent structure for the LL is repeated alongthe individual firms. Each node is in charge of manipulatingdata that each participating organization possesses about itsresources, products, and manufacturing processes. The LLorganization agent is the mediator between its peers and theUL coordinator agent. Agents at the upper layer drive theBPTs and make decisions when necessary. The UL agents,therefore, display intelligence and decision making capabili-ties, while LL agents deal with data acquisition at the level ofindividual enterprises.

In Fig. 5 the following abbreviations apply: (1) APstands for process agent, (2) AR: resource Agent, (3) AM:manufacturing agent, (4) AO: organization agent, (5) EEES: extended enterprise executive system, and (6) EPi OS:operational system enterprise i; i=1, 2,..., n.

To execute the BPTs defined in the previous section, acommunication protocol is modelled. Our proposal ispresented next.

4.1 The communication protocol

The communication protocol is modeled with a sequencediagram of the agent unified modeling language [33].

Business process ID Extended enterprise business process 2

BPT name Formalizing core manufacturing resources

Objective To establish manufacturing resources and associated processes and tooling


Raw material parameters

Outputs Resources, processes and tooling

Table 2 Formalizing core man-ufacturing resources

Generating the Extended Enterprise Shape

Receive raw material parameters, resources, processes and tooling

Determine raw material supplier

Determine resource supplier

Determine process supplier


Fig. 4 Business process type:generating the extended enter-prise shape


The template considers three alternative courses ofaction, each of which depends on particular informationneeds.

First, coordinator agent informs to one of its peers whatinput data is required. X-agent (X=product, process,resource, or organization) confirms data reception and thenruns its process to make a decision. This produces an output(either for a BPT or BPV), which is sent to coordinatoragent. For example, the material to employ, as decided byproduct agent, is the corresponding output of the first BPT.The first group of messages mirrors this process. Thesemessages are illustrated in Fig. 6.

Figure 7 illustrates the second group of messages, whichrepresents the contract net protocol [34]. This is executed inorder to grant a contract to the best supplier of material,resources or manufacturing processes. Candidate suppliersare the organizations residing at the lower layer. Thecontract net protocol defines a complex conversationamong several agents, starting when coordinator agent hasreceived a decision of what is needed (i.e., material toemploy). Coordinator broadcasts a call for proposal toevery LL organization agent, which informs to itscorresponding LL peer about the requested information.Organization agent can possibly make an offer to the

Fig. 5 Structure of the MAS for the extended enterprise

Business process ID Extended enterprise business process 3

BPT name Generating the extended enterprise shape

Objective To determine the shape of the extended enterprise


Specification of material

Resources and processes parameters

Outputs Shape of the extended enterprise

Table 3 Generating the extend-ed enterprise Shape


coordinator or not, depending on the information itreceives. From its perspective, coordinator can receive oneor more offers coming from different LL organizationagents. When this happens, coordinator informs to the ULX-agent about the terms of the proposal. Then, UL X-agentevaluates the proposal and tells the coordinator to accept itor to refuse it. The contract net protocol ends when the firstaccepted offer is granted.

However, some BPTs do not require a negotiationamong agents. For these BPTs, another conversation canbe followed. This is represented by the third group ofmessages shown in Fig. 8, between coordinator and X-agent at the upper layer. At this regard, coordinator agentreceives data coming from BPTs and informs it to the X-agent, which runs its own decision process, generates agiven output, and informs this data to the coordinator whichfinally confirms data reception. The communication proto-col just described is general enough to model, in terms ofmessages among agents, situations that arise when thedynamics of BPTs are implemented.

It is important to recall that one of the major featuresassociated to the notion of agency is the capacity to decidewhat course of action ought to be followed. In this sense,each of the agents has been programmed the correspondingprotocol and the intelligence to initiate a conversation. The

actual implementation of the protocol is a matter ofextensive agent-oriented programming, for which weemploy the JADE platform [35].

4.2 An illustrative rule base

Some decisions have to be made either to request orprovide information. For example, it is important to definethe right material to use. This is obtained by processing anumber of variables such as weight, malleability, etc. Thesevariables are synthesized on a rule-based system in order toautomate decision making.

We present an example of the rule base that is employedby the UL product agent. Even though the case study isfurther explained in Section 5 suffices to say that it refers toproducing spoons made of steel. The following variablesare considered: (1) density, (2) hardness, (3) stainless, and(4) polishness. Illustrative data is presented in Table 3.

To exemplify the type of decisions made by UL productagent, let us go back to business process type “settingtechnical parameters for raw material”. This BPT receivesa list of qualitative functions that a given market segmenttreasures and outputs a prioritized list of technical param-eters. For the case study, technical parameters are formedby the following variables: (1) weight, (2) shape, (3)

Fig. 6 Communication at theupper layer


Fig. 7 The contract net protocol


stainlessness, and (4) finishing type. Every one of thosevariables is given a priority calculated to comply with thequalitative functions of the product (spoon).

To estate it succinctly, the calculations of priorities is aprocedure where qualitative functions of the product areevaluated. Such an evaluation balances, in the first place,the design features. Those features must be translated intotechnical parameters associated to the raw material. Tocomply with design, some technical parameters have ahigher priority than others. In turn, some materials complywith those priorities better than others (Table 4).

For example, a given market segment might prefer alight spoon. This is translated into technical parameterweight, which then obtains a certain priority. If the samemarket segment fancies a nice holder design, then it shouldbe mapped into a material that can be molded easily. Thus,shape is given a priority. All the priorities are relative toeach other, but the right material is decided by finding abalance among the qualitative functions translated intopriorities of technical parameters.

Nevertheless, this is a domain-specific task for whichcustomized rule-based systems must be constructed. Table 5is a decisional matrix on which the rule base for the case-study is constructed.

For example, an IF-THEN rule is obtained afteranalyzing first row of Table 5:

IF weight priority ¼ 1; shape priority ¼ 2; stainlessness priority

¼ 3: and finishing type;priority

¼ 4; THEN selected steel ¼ 420

The rule base is provided to product agent of the upper layer.To clarify, we present the case study in the coming section.

5 Case study: spoons and steels

The case study refers to producing spoons made of steel.Firstly, it is launched BPT “setting technical parameters forraw material”. This BPT is thought to merge qualitative

Fig. 8 Communication betweencoordinator and lower layer or-ganization agent

Density (g/m3) Hardness (Brinell) Stainless Polishness Steel Type

8.0 160 Yes Yes 304

7.7 165 Yes Yes 410

7.75 155 Yes Yes 416

7.64 225 Yes Yes 420

7.86 235 No Yes A-2

7.69 240 No Yes D-2

7.86 265 No Yes D-3

7.85 228 No Yes O-1

Table 4 Features of severalsteel types


data (i.e., tactile sensation) with technical data associated tothe raw material (i.e., hardness as measured on Brinnelscale). The outcome is a steel type that fulfills both designqualities and manufacturability. Data that has been gatheredby surveying the target market segment is fed to the MASthrough a graphical user interface attached to the coordina-tor agent (Fig. 9). Then, a new product’s identification isestablished (Fig. 10).

Qualitative functions for the production of steeledspoons are evaluated according to how they matter to themarket segment (Fig. 11). Coordinator agent receives thesevalues and sends them to product agent.

Qualitative functions are arranged in four categories:

1. usability (usabilidad)2. performance (desempeño)

Weight priority Shape priority Stainless priority Finishing type priority Steel type

1 2 3 4 420

1 2 4 3 410

1 3 2 4 410

1 3 4 2 420

1 4 2 3 420

1 4 3 2 420

2 1 3 4 410

2 1 4 3 410

2 3 1 4 420

2 3 4 1 O-1

2 4 1 3 420

2 4 3 1 O-1

3 1 2 4 304

3 1 4 2 410

3 2 1 4 304

3 2 4 1 O-1

3 4 1 2 420

3 4 2 1 420

4 1 2 3 304

4 1 3 2 410

4 2 1 3 304

4 2 3 1 304

4 3 1 2 304

4 3 2 1 304

Table 5 Combinations of tech-nical priorities to decide steeltype

Fig. 9 Extended Enterprisemanager launches the MAS


3. tactile sensation (tacto)4. hygiene (limpieza)

Each category, in turn, contains the actual functions to beevaluated. In Fig. 11, under the performance category(desempeño), qualitative functions lightness (peso ligero),and holder shape (forma del mango) are given anevaluation of 2 (on a 1-5 scale); no movement restriction(no restringe movimientos), safe (seguro) and attractive(atractivo) are each evaluated with an importance of 1 (thelowest). Therefore, a spoon easy to grasp is treasured.

Once this valuation is terminated, business processvariations “receive order specifications” and “evaluate

qualitative functions”, belonging to business process type“setting technical parameters for raw material”, arefinished.

It is still necessary to determine the right steel. This datais obtained by executing business process variation “settingtechnical objectives”. On this BPV, an expert decides towhat extent a series of technical objectives influence the

Fig. 13 Product agent determines steel type

Fig. 12 Product agent establishes priorities for design objectives

Fig. 11 Coordinator agent receives product’s qualitative functions

Fig. 10 Coordinator agent receives data for product identification


material to select. The expert provides its valuations andproduct agent of the upper layer prioritizes them.

The outcome of this BPV is displayed in Fig. 12.According to the results given by product agent, steelfeatures (stainless) obtains 10 points, making it the highestranked technical parameter. Therefore, the priority given tothis technical requirement is 1. Similarly, shape (forma)obtains 7.704 points, with a priority of 2. Finishing type(acabado de superficie) gets a score of 6.72, with a priorityvalue of 3. Weight (peso) gets 3.606 points (priority=4).

To decide the right type of steel, product agent inputssuch priorities to the rule base shown in Table 5, and theresultant material is steel type 304 (Fig. 13). This datarepresents the output yield by business process variation“determine raw material and technical parameters”.Therefore, BPT “setting technical parameters for rawmaterial” is accomplished. Figure 14 illustrates how theextended enterprise executive system is updated once thematerial is selected.

Once the type of steel is decided, it is now necessary tospecify core manufacturing resources and shape theextended enterprise.

Formalizing core manufacturing resources consists ofdefining processes, machines, and tooling. Input to thisBPT is the material type and its technical parameters.Parallel to this BPT, the contract net is carried to select theindividual enterprises that will provide raw material,equipment, tooling, and data for manufacturing processes.

Specifically, product agent selects what material to use.In this case, it requires a steel type 304. This is informed to

the coordinator agent. Then coordinator launches thecontract net protocol, allowing steel suppliers to makeoffers about the instance of steel 304 that are able toprovide. It is important to highlight that subtle differenceson steel composition exist among instances of steel type304 (as for every steel type). Hence, to determine the bettersteel type, national standards are used as reference. In thiscase, we refer to the Mexican standard MX-B83 for steels.Thus, the supplier that best adheres to this standard ischosen to participate in the extended enterprise. Thisparticular decision is carried by forming a rule base afterthe specifications found in the referred norm.

Following the communication protocol, coordinatorreceives the steel that is offered by every supplier, andinforms the upper layer product agent. This agent deter-mines whether the offer is good enough or not, based on thefollowing criteria:

Compliance to the national normDelivery timeCapacity to deliver the desired amount of steel

The contract is awarded to the first steel supplier that fitssuch criteria. Business process types “formalizing coremanufacturing resources” and “generating the extendedenterprise shape” continue iteratively to select manufactur-ing processes, machines, and tools. The shape of theextended enterprise is defined and updated in the extendedenterprise executive system. Even though we present threeof the business process types, data exchange goes on asdepicted in Fig. 1.

Fig. 14 Coordinator updates theextended enterprise executivesystem


6 Conclusions

Along the article, we have provided a solution to overcometwo barriers that impede exchanging information in theextended enterprise, primarily associated to core capabili-ties of the participating firms. One impediment refers to thesupporting software for sharing and exchanging data.Because information systems remain locally owned by theconstituent companies, cooperation is needed. Therefore,we developed a multi-agent system to achieve distributedinformation processing and to make intelligent decisions byinteracting with a customized rule-based system.

The absence of a coordination mechanism is the secondproblemwe solved by taking advantage of business processes.Since agents request data, acknowledge reception, processinformation, and transmit new data to another agent, messagesact as information carriers. To coordinate the sequence ofmessages, we established a pattern out of business processes.The actual communication among agents is a protocol thatmirrors what is dictated by business processes.

Our solution to coordinating data exchange in theextended enterprise consists of a multi-agent system, withcentral processing of data and distributed along theparticipating firms. Also, a communication protocol amongagents was designed, and it is general enough to support theexecution of business processes. Finally, intelligence wasprovided to some agents by means of IF-THEN rules.

Even though the proposal is validated by a case study,there are opportunities to improve this line of research. Wesuggest that business processes be standardized at theontological dimension so the interactions in the extendedenterprise follow a common pattern. However, a modelingframework for BPs must be open in order to integratesubtleties of specific manufacturing domains. Anotherpossible improvement refers to the protocol itself, whichcan incorporate more powerful negotiation mechanisms.The combination of standardized data models, the capabil-ities inherent to MAS and coordination patterns are indeeda powerful strategy to model and implement complexdynamics proper of the extended enterprise.

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A communication protocol among agents for exchanging data in the extended enterprise

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