A collaborative agent-based infrastructure for Internet-enabled collaborative enterprises

The Internet has evolved very rapidly from an information space to a market space over the past few years. There is a tendency towards implementing real-world agent-based applications based on the Internet. This paper presents some results of our recent research work towards an infrastructure for Internet-enabled collaborative agent systems. The infrastructure and the related supporting services, components, prototypes and mechanisms are initially proposed and developed for Internet-enabled collaborative agent systems in all kinds of application areas, but they are primarily targeted for implementing Internet-enabled collaborative enterprises or supply chain management systems. The general collaborative agent system architecture with the basic communication and cooperation services, domain independent components, prototypes and mechanisms are described. The benefits of implementing Internet-enabled collaborative enterprises with the proposed infrastructure are discussed. A case study on multi-plant production planning is presented. Some important implementation issues are discussed.