C.-Y. F. Huang

An Internet-based negotiation server for e-commerce

Abstract. This paper describes the design and implementation of a replicable, Internet-based negotiation server for conducting bargaining-type negotiations between enterprises involved in e-commerce and e-business. Enterprises can be buyers and sellers of products/services or participants of a complex supply chain engaged in purchasing, planning, and scheduling. Multiple copies of our server can be installed to complement the services of Web servers. Each enterprise can install or select a trusted negotiation server to represent his/her interests. Web-based GUI tools are used during the build-time registration process to specify the requirements, constraints, and rules that represent negotiation policies and strategies, preference scoring of different data conditions, and aggregation methods for deriving a global cost-benefit score for the item(s) under negotiation. The registration information is used by the negotiation servers to automatically conduct bargaining type negotiations on behalf of their clients. In this paper, we present the architecture of our implementation as well as a framework for automated negotiations, and describe a number of communication primitives which are used in the underlying negotiation protocol. A constraint satisfaction processor (CSP) is used to evaluate a negotiation proposal or counterproposal against the registered requirements and constraints of a client company. In case of a constraint violation, an event is posted to trigger the execution of negotiation strategic rules, which either automatically relax the violated constraint, ask for human intervention, invoke an application, or perform other remedial operations. An Event-Trigger-Rule (ETR) server is used to manage events, triggers, and rules. Negotiation strategic rules can be added or modified at run-time. A cost-benefit analysis component is used to perform quantitative analysis of alternatives. The use of negotiation servers to conduct automated negotiation has been demonstrated in the context of an integrated supply chain scenario.

A replicable Web-based negotiation server for e-commerce

This paper describes our ongoing R&D effort in developing a replicable, Web-based negotiation server to conduct bargaining-type negotiations between clients (i.e., buyers and sellers) in e-commerce. Multiple copies of this server can be paired with existing Web-servers to provide negotiation capabilities. Each client can select a trusted negotiation server to represent his/her interests. Web-based GUI tools are used by clients in a build-time registration process to specify the requirements, constraints, negotiation strategic rules, and preference scoring methods related to the buying or selling of a product. The registration information in used by the negotiation servers to conduct negotiations automatically on behalf of the clients. In this paper, we present the architecture of the negotiation server and the framework for automated negotiations, and describe a number of communication primitives, which make up the negotiation protocol. We have developed a constraint satisfaction processor (CSP) to evaluate a negotiation proposal against the registered constraints. An event-trigger-rule (ETR) server manages events and triggers the execution of strategic rules, which may relax constraints, notify clients, or perform other operations. Strategic rules can be added and modified at run-time to deal with the dynamic nature of negotiations. A cost-benefit analysis performs quantitative analysis of alternative negotiation conditions. We have implemented a prototype system to demonstrate automated negotiations among buyers and suppliers in a supply chain management system.

Design and Implementation of Business Objects for Automated Business Negotiations

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in the specification, generation and exchange of business objects in the context of electronic commerce. Common business objects have been defined for product catalogs, purchase orders and other business entities. However, no business objects have been defined and implemented for supporting automated business negotiations even though business negotiation is very much an integral part of business activities. In this work, we have designed and implemented a set of business negotiation objects for supporting the bargaining type of business negotiations. These objects define the operations and information contents needed for negotiation parties to express their requirements and constraints during a bargaining process. They correspond to a set of negotiation primitives, which is a superset of the negotiation-related primitives defined in two popular languages: ACL and COOL. The implementation of these objects is patterned after the business object documents in the XML format proposed by the Open Applications Group, thus conforming to the established standard. The incorporation of several types of constraint specifications in these business negotiation objects provides the negotiation parties and the negotiation servers that represent them much expressive power in specifying call‐for‐proposals and proposals. Two synchronization problems and their solutions associated with the withdrawal and modification of negotiation proposals are addressed and presented in this paper. The use of these business negotiation objects in a bi‐lateral bargaining protocol is also presented. We have validated the utility of these objects in an integrated network environment, which consists of two replicated negotiation servers, two commercial products, and some other university research systems that form a supply chain.

The IDEAL approach to Internet-based negotiation for e-business

With the emergence of e-business as the next killer application for the Web, automating bargaining-type negotiations between clients (i.e., buyers and sellers) has become increasingly important. With IDEAL (Internet based Dealmaker for e-business), we have developed an architecture and framework, including a negotiation protocol, for automated negotiations among multiple IDEAL servers. The main components of IDEAL are a constraint satisfaction processor (CSP) to evaluate a proposal, an Event-Trigger-Rule (ETR) server for managing and triggering the execution of rules which make up the negotiation strategy (rules can be updated at run-time to deal with the dynamic nature of negotiations), and a cost-benefit analysis to help in the selection of alternative strategies. We have implemented a fully functional prototype system of IDEAL to demonstrate automated negotiations among buyers and suppliers participating in a supply chain.