E-Procurement Process

Small and Medium Enterprises ◽

10.4018/978-1-4666-3886-0.ch007 ◽

2013 ◽

pp. 118-138

Author(s):

Paolo Renna ◽

Pierluigi Argoneto

Keyword(s):

Negotiation Process ◽

Positive Trend ◽

Agent Architecture ◽

Procurement Process ◽

Profit Distribution ◽

Auction Mechanisms ◽

Multi Agent ◽

Simulation Results ◽

Business To Business ◽

Production Plans

E-procurement transactions in Business to Business (B2B) environment showed a constant and positive trend in the last years. The most popular methodologies to support these tools are all related to dedicated protocols able to facilitate the agreements among customers and suppliers. This chapter proposes a Multi Agent Architecture integrated with several multi-attribute auction mechanisms specifically designed to support the e-procurement processes. Moreover, differently from other cases proposed in literature, the suppliers’ proposal formulation is strongly influenced by their production plans. A simulative environment has been developed in order to evaluate different performances: the customer and suppliers’ utilities, the profit distribution among the involved agents and the time necessary to reach an agreement. The mentioned approaches are compared with a negotiation process. The simulation results highlight the weakness and strength points of each auction protocol and why they can be considered as a relevant tool in B2B environments.

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E-Procurement Process

E-Business Managerial Aspects, Solutions and Case Studies ◽

10.4018/978-1-60960-463-9.ch006 ◽

2011 ◽

pp. 90-112

Author(s):

Paolo Renna ◽

Pierluigi Argoneto

Keyword(s):

Negotiation Process ◽

Positive Trend ◽

Agent Architecture ◽

Procurement Process ◽

Profit Distribution ◽

Auction Mechanisms ◽

Multi Agent ◽

Simulation Results ◽

Business To Business ◽

Production Plans

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Dynamic Co-opetitive Network Organization Supported by Multi Agent Architecture

Business Organizations and Collaborative Web ◽

10.4018/978-1-60960-581-0.ch011 ◽

2011 ◽

pp. 165-183

Author(s):

Paolo Renna

Keyword(s):

Simulation Tool ◽

Informal Networks ◽

Agent Architecture ◽

Industrial Economy ◽

Participation Decision ◽

Promising Tool ◽

Multi Agent ◽

Simulation Results ◽

Operational Activities ◽

New Feature

The emergence of institutional or informal networks, formed by cluster groups appears to be a major new feature of the contemporary industrial economy. The focus of this chapter is the development of a Multi Agent Architecture to support a network of enterprises that collaborate in a co-opetition relationships environment. The research concerns the investigation of a life cycle of the network in which the partners change dynamically. In particular, the enterprises that participate in the network can exit or continue to participate, while the enterprises that operate outside the network can evaluate to participate in the network. A simulation environment is developed to implement and test the proposed Multi Agent Architecture. The simulation tool allows to evaluate the proposed approach in a co-opetitive network during the operational activities. The simulation results show that the proposed approach is a very promising tool to support the plant’s participation decision.

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Coalitional Added Services in a Linear Neutral e-Marketplace

Advances in Logistics, Operations, and Management Science - Supply Chain Optimization, Design, and Management ◽

10.4018/978-1-61520-633-9.ch002 ◽

2011 ◽

pp. 33-50

Author(s):

Paolo Renna ◽

Pierluigi Argoneto

Keyword(s):

Game Theory ◽

Shapley Value ◽

Profit Sharing ◽

Related Research ◽

Planning Activity ◽

Business Applications ◽

The Shapley Value ◽

Auction Mechanisms ◽

Simulation Results ◽

Business To Business

The increase of transactions by electronic commerce (e-commerce) in Business to Business applications has a constant trend during last years. Many research reports have focused on negotiation and auction mechanisms in this context, but a smaller number of related research attempts, has chosen to develop coalition approaches This research attempt tries to overcome this gap by an innovative coalition model for a private neutral linear e-marketplace that combines a full integration between customer’s request and supplier’s planning activity. The Shapley value approach is proposed to manage the profit sharing activity among the coalition participants. The Shapley value is an approach of game theory used to share a gain in coalition games. A proper simulation environment has been designed and modeled in order to measure the “stay-together economy” achievable within the proposed innovative e-marketplace. The simulation results highlight how the proposed approach increases the performance level of the e-marketplace: specifically the suppliers gain more benefits than the customers through the possibility of establishing coalitions.

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