John W. Shepherdson

Realizing Teamwork in the Field: An Agent-Based Approach

The managerial trend of empowering workforces requires mobile workers to rely on a high degree of teamwork in a changing environment. An intelligent agent enhances the provision of cooperative services by adopting a component-based approach, increasing accessibility to mobile workers in the field.

A Multi-Agent System to Support Location-Based Group Decision Making in Mobile Teams

This paper describes an agent-based approach for developing a location-based asynchronous group decision-support system for mobile teams. The approach maximises the use of reusable service components (GSCmas — generic service component for multi-agent systems) as the main interaction mechanism between agents to allow flexible support of a new group-decision process. The paper describes the architecture of a GSCmas and provides details of how the GSCmas is integrated within a decision support system. Finally a system (mPower) based on the proposed approach is introduced and applied to a location-based group decision problem.

A Conversational Component-Based Open Multi-agent Architecture for Flexible Information Trading

In a competitive market environment, information service providers try to differentiate their offerings by adopting new kinds of interactions with information consumers. The standardization of languages and interaction protocols used in messages among information agents in electronic commerce frustrates the needs of service providers as they attempt to differentiate their offerings. In this paper a multi-agent architecture (where conversational components are used as the main tool for interactions among participating agents) is proposed to allow an information consumer agent to interact with an information provider agent that supplies a service via an unknown language or interaction protocol.

MAS platforms as an enabler of enterprise mobilisation: the state of the art

One of the main application areas for multi-agent systems technology is enterprise mobilization, wherein the main business process actors are nomadic workers. An agents autonomy, sociality and intelligence are highly prized features when it comes to supporting those mobile workers who are geographically isolated from the main knowledge source (i.e. the corporate Intranet) and are frequently moving from one location to another. Based on experience gained from two field trials of applications (built using for multi-agent systems technology and running on lightweight handheld devices) that support mobile business processes for telecommunications service provisioning and maintenance, this paper proposes desirable metrics for any multi-agent systems platform intended for enterprise mobilisation use. These metrics are then used to compare a number of existing multi-agent systems platforms, and based on the results, this paper identifies some areas for improvement.

TeamWorker: An Agent-Based Support System for Mobile Task Execution

An organization’s mobile workforce is a vital asset, as it is in the front line liaising with customers, and driving the sale of an organization’s products and/or services. Despite this, the IT support provided to mobile workers is often inferior to that available to office-based workers. Mobile workers operate in an unreliable environment, and as such require differing types of support. Within this paper we present a multi-agent based computer cooperative support system known as TeamWorker which can help overcome the difficulties faced by mobile workers. Within this system, each mobile worker is assigned a personal agent that can assist her/him during the working day through appropriate service provision (based on current work context), and through monitoring work progress to anticipate and undertake required actions on the user’s behalf. A detailed presentation of the TeamWorker system is given, including the benefits provided for a real life mobile business process.

Multi-agent Technology as an enabler of Computer Supported Cooperative Work for the Mobile Workforce

This paper proposes an agent-based computer supported cooperative work system known as TeamWorker that enables cooperation between mobile workers for the execution of their jobs by providing services via conversational components (C-COMs). C-COMs, encapsulate agent interaction protocols, which can be dynamically plugged into participating agents. Furthermore, the intelligence and autonomy of agent technology is applied to overcome the barriers faced in mobile computing environments, such as difficulty in monitoring work progress, device diversity, need for multi-modal human agent interface, etc. Finally, we discuss how TeamWorker has been applied to a real mobile business process in a telecommunications company in the UK.

Collaboration as a Reusable Component in Business Process Management

This paper presents an approach to incorporating collaboration among process actors as a major construct for business process modeling. Furthermore collaboration is realized as a reusable software component. This provides todays workflow management systems with an opportunity to integrate collaboration with their existing process execution to realize full co-operation support for business process management. A collaboration-centric application framework based on a reusable collaboration component and a multi-agent platform is proposed. A description of how it was refined through use in a succession of applications used to trial team-working with various groups of mobile workers is included to show the usefulness and maturity of the approach. Finally some information is given in regards to the productisation of the enterprise mobilization platform of which the collaboration-centric application framework is a component.

Delivering knowledge in the field

This paper proposes an agent-based system for knowledge management in a mobile work environment. The system is developed based on a real case of telecommunications service provision and maintenance. In the system, cooperating multi-agents play a central role by integrating heterogeneous systems to collect and provide related knowledge for effective execution of mobile tasks and problem solving. The proposed system is expected to increase both the performance of the mobile workforce and customer satisfaction by facilitating creation and sharing of knowledge.

Dynamic change handling for inter-organisational workflows in open virtual eMarketplaces

Electronic marketplaces (eMarketplaces) help companies react more flexibly to customer demands by automating various types of transactions online. However, despite this advantage, eMarketplaces pose significant challenges in respect of change management for the participating companies, due to lack of central control, information opacity and heterogeneity of information systems. In order to address these problems, this paper presents an agent-based framework for handling change in dynamic inter-organisational workflows (ADIOF) in virtual environments. The framework utilises the unique strengths of agent technology such as autonomy, intelligence and collaboration, which enables formation of virtual organisations and adaptive and dynamic coordination of inter-organisational workflows (IOWs). The framework also adopts software component technology to enable plug-and-play style interaction protocols among agent systems. The key ideas of the framework are illustrated using an example case. A proof-of-concept implementation of ADIOF is also presented.

Agent based formation and enactment of adaptable inter-organizational workflows in virtual organizations

This paper proposes an agent-based framework for the composition and handling of change requests in dynamic inter-organizational workflows (IOWs) in virtual organization context. The framework adopts the software component technology to enable agents in an IOW to handle ad-hoc change requests in the run-time of the IOW. A change propagation model that guides the coordination process of the agents to handle a change request is proposed and a prototype system of the framework is detailed.