Designing a successful trading agent for supply chain management

This paper describes the design and evaluation of SouthamptonSCM, the runner-up in the 2005 International Trading Agent Supply Chain Management Competition (TAC SCM). In particular, we focus on the way in which our agent purchases components using a mixed procurement strategy (combining long and short term planning) and how it sets its prices according to the prevailing market situation and its own inventory level (because this adaptivity and flexibility are key to its success). We analyse our buying and selling strategies in the actual competition and in controlled experiments. Through this evaluation, we show that SouthamptonSCM performs well across a broad range of environments.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: ATAL
• Authors: Minghua He, Alex Rogers, Xudong Luo, Nicholas R. Jennings
• Keywords: Agent Purchases Components, Agent Supply Chain, ATAL 2006, Intelligent Agents, Mixed Procurement Strategy