Decision Models of Task Assignment for Virtual Enterprises Based on Multi-Agent Theory

Nowadays a sophisticated match-making mechanism is necessary for appropriate collaborations in virtual enterprise (VE). In a VE, any member enterprise should take initiative in involvement according to the internal production condition, which is changing dynamically with independent management sovereignty. Just under the environment, this paper develops a dynamic multi-agent-based task assignment system comprising production agent, information control center agent, task agent and resource agent, for VEs, attempting to address the selection of individually managed partners and the process of assigning tasks to them. Finally, decision-making models of task assignment such as partner-selection decisions, resource agent-selection decisions as well as task-selection decisions were studied.