Using Information Gain to Analyze and Fine Tune the Performance of Supply Chain Trading Agents

The Supply Chain Trading Agent Competition (TAC SCM) was designed to explore approaches to dynamic supply chain trading. During the course of each year’s competition historical data is logged describing more than 800 games played by different agents from around the world. In this paper, we present analysis that is focused on determining which features of agent behavior, such as the average lead time requested for supplies or the average selling price offered on finished products, tend to differentiate agents that win from those that do not. We present a visual inspection of data from 16 games played in one bracket of the 2006 TAC SCM semi-final rounds. Plots of data from these games help isolate behavioral features that distinguish top performing agents in this bracket. We then introduce a metric based on information gain to provide a more complete analysis of the 80 games played in the 2006 TAC SCM quarter-final, semi-final and final rounds. The metric captures the amount of...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: ATAL
• Authors: James Andrews, Michael Benisch, Alberto Sardinha, Norman M. Sadeh
• Keywords: ATAL 2007, Games Played, Supply Chain Trading, TAC SCM