An Agent-based System for Sales and Operations Planning in Manufacturing Supply Chains

A major problem faced by manufacturing organizations is providing efficient and cost-effective responses to the unpredictable changes taking place in global markets and in supply chains. Sales and Operations Planning helps giving better customer service, lower inventory, shorten customer lead times, stabilized production rates. Sales and Operations Planning provides top management with a handle on the business, supporting a company to get and keep demand and supply in balance over time. This paper proposes an approach that would enable small and medium manufacturing organizations to dynamically achieve cost effective aggregate sales and operations plans exploiting two emerging concepts: agent-based agile manufacturing systems and e-manufacturing. A complex manufacturing system and its supply network is modeled as a multi-agent system and scenarios with respect to the balance between supply and demand are dynamically simulated through the coordinated interactions amongst agents. This paper presents the main features of the proposed system and it finally discusses the benefits highlighted by its application in real industrial contexts.