Formation of Virtual Organizations Through Negotiation

In this paper negotiation is presented as a solution to the formation of virtual organization in domains with many parties having (partially) unknown constraints and profiles and in which the environment is dynamic by nature. The solution presented is based on the MAGNET negotiation system, for which an extension is presented, that allows for last minute changes and failure management. An efficient algorithm is presented for supplier agents, incorporating preferences, and other constraints related to existing individual plans). Combining the algorithms for supplier agents, with a simple customer agent specification, and the ability to iterate the bidding, MAGNET is extended to deal with domains as described above. A case study in logistics using real data from a logistics company shows the validity of the approach.