The agent-based collaboration information system of product development

Businesses are undergoing a major paradigm shift, moving from traditional management into a world of agile organizations and processes. An agile corporation should be able to rapidly respond to market changes. For this reason, corporations have been seeking to develop numerous information technology systems to assist with the information management of their business processes. Many of the on-coming new business processes may contain embedded agent-based information systems. Agent technology looks set to radically alter not only the way in which the computers interact, but also the way complex processes, e.g., product development, are conceptualized and built. This paper proposes an agent-based system of collaborative information and a solution procedure for designing with modules to develop modular products. This approach aims to address the research issue: “ How can modular product development be carried out through the intelligent agents of the collaboration information system to meet a customer's requirements using modules that come from suppliers that are geographically separated and operate on differing computer platforms?”