SC-WEB-CS: SUPPLY CHAIN WEB-CENTRIC SYSTEMS JIANBING WU, MIRCEA COBZARU, MIHAELA ULIERU, and DOUGLAS H. NORRIE Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering University of Calgary 2500 University Dr., N.W. Calgary Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4 ABSTRACT This paper proposes a generic framework, SC-web- CS, for the development of next generation web-centric supply chain management systems. The framework builds on our previously developed Multi-Resolution Col- laborative Architecture (MRCA) that supports multiple collaborative interfaces for effective human/system inter- action within an underlying open-system framework. Its implementation is supported by a distributed information management system (DIMS), built on a powerful com- munication platform with adaptive capabilities, and with a new and efficient type of coordination and communi- cation infrastructure which supports multi-agent collabo- ration. Some implementation issues are also discussed in details. Keywords: multiagent systems, web-centric supply chain management, multi-resolution collaborative architecture, distributed information management system. 1 INTRODUCTION Modern manufacturing is moving away from vertically integrated companies that control all aspects of produc- tion and distribution, towards networks of independent suppliers and distributors. The supply chain encompasses all activities associated with the flow and transformation of goods from the raw materials stage, through to the end user, as well as the associated information flows. Supply chain includes the management of information systems, sourcing and procurement, production scheduling, order processing, inventory management, warehousing, custom service, and after-market disposition of packaging and materials. Supply chain management (SCM) is the inte- gration of these activities through improved supply chain relationships, to achieve a sustainable competitive ad- vantage. With the emergence of new telecommunications and computer technology, the old “paper”-type transactions are becoming increasingly obsolete. Leading-edge organi- zations no longer require paper purchase requisitions, pur- chase orders, invoices, receiving forms, and a manual accounts payable "matching" process. New supply chain management systems/strategies, linking suppliers, manu- facturers, distributors, retail outlets, and ultimately, cus- tomers, are now being developed/studies, such as the Supply-Chain Operations Reference model (SCOR) of the Supply-Chain Council (http://www.supply-chain.org/ ), ActivEra software system of J.D. Edwards (http://www. jdedwards.com ), RHYTHM solutions of i2 Technologies, Inc. (http://www.i2.com/ ), and the Triada software plat- form of TRIADA, Ltd. (http://www.triada.com ). They can substantially reduce paperwork, improve communication, improve overall productivity, reduce inventory, improve delivery performance, and reduce lead-time and non- value-added activities. Intelligent agents – regarded as software entities that exhibit autonomy and environmental awareness enabling their interaction with the environment (e.g., with other agents) to achieve internal goals – have become very po- pular in the past decade [1]. Multi-agent systems (MAS) consisting of cooperative agents working together to solve particular tasks, have proven extremely useful in dis- tributed applications ranging from traffic control to e- commerce. Endowed with extended communication cap- abilities by the advances in networking technology agents are being used in an increasingly wide variety of appli- cations involving inter-enterprise collaboration, extending the boundaries of strategic partnership to wherever the internetworking technologies can reach. Since supply chain management is fundamentally concerned with co- herence among multiple, globally distributed decision makers, a multi-agent modeling framework based on ex- plicit communication between constituent agents (such as manufacturers, suppliers, retailers, and customers) seems very appealing. This paper proposes a framework for the development of web-centric supply chain management systems, based on the multi-agent paradigm – generically called “SC- web-CS”. The concept builds on our Multi-Resolution Collaborative Architecture (MRCA) for global manu- facturing applications [2]. The rest of this paper is orga- nized as follows: Section 2 deals with the state-of-the-art in MAS approaches to supply chain management; Section 3 describes the proposed collaborative agent system archi- tecture (MRCA); Section 4 introduces the SC-web-CS