An Approach of Decision-Making Support Based on Collaborative Agents for a Large Distribution Sector

International audienceThis paper applies the multi-agent systems paradigm to collaborative coordination and negotiation in a global distribution supply chain. Multi-agent computational environments are suitable for a broad class of coordination and negotiation issues involving multiple autonomous or semiautonomous problem solving contexts. An agent-based distributed architecture is proposed for better management of rush unexpected orders for which the quantity of product cannot be delivered partially or completely from the available inventory. This type of orders can be generated by unexpected swings in demand or unexpected exceptions (problem of production, problem of transportation, etc.). This paper proposes a first architecture and discusses an industrial case study