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An Multi-Agents System to Implement E-Business
JI GAO,YANBIN PENG , BEISHUI LIAO Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China E-MIAL:
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Abstraction Although EDI(electronic data Interchange)have provided a useful method to the automated message Interchanging between enterprises, this method costs a lot of money and resources, there is a new technology named ebXML(Electronic Business using eXtensible Markup Language) BPSS(Business Process Specification Schema) which provides a more easy way to integrate the whole business process. Ebxml BPSS supports the specification of the set of elements required to configure a runtime system in order to execute a set of ebXML business transactions. Ebxml BPSS describes which message should be interchanged and how to interchange, and provides a set of specification for the process automation. In this study, we propose a federated multi-agents system, which can implement the business process, and describe a detailed mechanism to apply the BPS to a prototype implementation.
1.Introduction Nowadays, enterprises inevitably communicate with each other in everyday routine. They ordinarily communicate with each other using e-mail and telephone. It’s really a costly way. With the development of the IT technology and network information technology, enterprises can communicate with each other through network and interchange information in electronic format. This method saves a lot of manpower, money and time for enterprises. Large enterprises will set up private network for automated interchange information, which is more efficient, this way is called EDI (electronic data inter-change), EDI allows enterprise use pre-defined signal to communicate. Currently, typical EDI solutions are [1] and [2]. Among them, Sangjae Lee [1] discusses a description of a data envelopment analysis (DEA) model for analysis of the controls for a specific context of electronic data interchange.
He provide A data envelopment analysis model to analyze the efficiency of controls in the context of finance and trade . The model uses eight variables of formal or automated EDI controls as input and four variables of EDI implementation and performance as output. Automated controls are more efficiently utilized in financial applications than in trade applications, while formal controls are more efficiently used in trade applications. Every company can determine the relative amount of reduction in each mode or component of controls in order to make the control system efficient. Vairam Arunachalam’s study [2] examines alternative organizational forms for EDI processing within organizations and evaluates them on several task performance indices including independence, saturation, and satisfaction, and also relates them to EDI effectiveness as a function of information technology (IT) intensity and length of EDI use. Although EDI (electronic data Interchange) has provided a useful method to the automated message Interchange between enterprises, this method also costs a lot of money and resources [5,6], there is a new technology named ebXML (Electronic Business using eXtensible Markup Language) business process specification, which provides a more easy way to integrate the whole business process. Ebxml business process specification provides which messages should be interchanged and how to interchange, and provides a set of specification for automated of the process. EbXML is a modular suite of specifications that enables enterprises of any size and in any geographical location to conduct business over the Internet. Using ebXML, enterprises now have a standard method to exchange business messages, conduct trading relationships, communicate data in common terms, define and register business processes. On the basis of our earlier research on agent federation [7ˈ8ˈ9], we propose a model of federated multi-agent system for implementation of the ebxml BPSS. This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 introduces a federated multi-agents system. Section 3 explains the ebXML BPSS. In Section 4, we present the ontology definition of our system. We describe the implementation of
Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Web Services (ICWS’05) 0-7695-2409-5/05 $20.00 IEEE
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ebxml-based business process in our multi-agent system in section 5. Finally, conclusions are given in Section 6.
References [1] Lee, Sangjae; Lee, Kidong; Kang, In Won.” Efficiency analysis of controls in EDI applications” Information & Management Volume: 42, Issue: 3, March, 2005, pp. 425-439 [2] Arunachalam, Vairam.” Electronic data interchange: an evaluation of alternative organizational forms” Accounting, Organizations and Society Volume: 29, Issue: 3-4, April - May, 2004, pp. 227-241 [3] Gao Ji, Lin Donghao. “ASOJI: An Agents Based Controlling Integration Method.” Pattern Recognition & Artificial Intelligence,2000,13 (2): 151-158. [4] Gao ji, Wang Jin. “ABFSC: An Agents-Based Framework For Software Composition.” Journal of computers, 1999, 21 (10): 1050-1058 [5] Lim, Don; Palvia, Prashant C..” EDI in strategic supply chain: impact on customer service” International Journal of Information Management Volume: 21, Issue: 3, June, 2001, pp. 193-211 [6] Angeles, Rebecca; Nath, Ravinder.” An empirical study of EDI trading partner selection criteria in customer-supplier relationships” Information and Management Volume: 37, Issue: 5, August, 2000, pp. 241-255 [7] Gao, Ji, et al., Agent cooperation based control integration by activity-sharing and joint intention. Journal of Computer Science and Technology, v 17, n 3, May, 2002, p 331-339. [8] HU Jun, GAO Ji, LIAO Bei-shui, CHEN Jiu-jun. An Infrastructure for Managing and Controlling Agent Cooperation. To appear in Proceedings of The Eighth International Conference on CSCW in Design, May 26-28, 2004, Xiamen, PR China. [9] GAO Ji, WANG Jin.ABFSC:AN AGENTS-BASED FRAMEWORK FOR SOFTWARE COMPOSITION.Chinese Journal of Computers, 1999, l22(10):1050-1058. [10] http://www.ebxml.org/specs/index.htm .Technica l Specifications of business process specification University,2003.
Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Web Services (ICWS’05) 0-7695-2409-5/05 $20.00 IEEE
