An agent-based approach to model business processes in a complex commercial environment

Abstract

The idea behind this dissertation was born as a countermeasure against the inefficient or even lack of communication in business processes. This situation leads to a major percentage of resources (human, equipment, financial) being wasted in a very dangerous manner for the existence of a commercial entity. The motivation of this dissertation is to improve efficiently, through an agent based approach, the communication in business processes situated in a complex commercial environment. The efficient communication of knowledge and information is imperative to maintain the quality and existence of a business process. At the same time, business processes are vital for the survival of the commercial entity in order for the latter to deliver the service it was set up for. All this motivates the need for a solution product that aims to execute, monitor and control the business processes, preserving at all times a reliable, correct and efficient communication mechanism. This dissertation rotates about the idea of employing software agents to model the business processes in a commercial environment. The ultimate scenario is a society of humans and agents communicating and co-operating together in a reliable, correct and efficient manner to execute the business processes. However, we take the development one step further. The goal of this project development is to create and develop a set of components to be used in the construction of a software agent that executes one or more business process. The developer selects and combines these components to provide the framework for the software agent that is capable of receiving inputs from the environment, executing the business process based on the inputs received and produce the necessary outputs from the business process to return them to the environment.