Agent technology for supporting real-time supply chain management

Information and communication technology is an important enabler of effective Supply Chain Management (SCM). Emerging new technologies have created new possibilities for developing SCM systems and e-business solutions. Recently, the software agent technology has been studied for supporting effective information management in business networks. This paper introduces a business network, where shared information of the network improves lead-time, cost efficiency and faculty for customer service. The research is conducted as a case study in a steel product industry network in Finland and is based on qualitative material and analysed as an entity. The supporting technical research is based on an agent-based prototype for a mutual software system for an industry network