On Automated Contracting in Multi-enterprise Manufacturing

So far most distributed scheduling systems have been designed for cooperative agents and are inappropriate for self interested agents which exist for exam ple in inter rm interactions such as virtual enterprises This paper discusses issues that arise in extending the Contract Net Protocol to operate among such self interested agents whose rationality is bounded by combinatorial complex ity The new protocol allows varying the stage of commitment for exibility in the contracting process It also allows varying levels of commitment asso ciated advantages are reviewed Next the implications of bounded rationality are discussed Tradeo s between allocated computation and negotiation bene ts and risk are enumerated and the necessity of explicit local deliberation control is substantiated The Vickrey auction mechanism for truth promotion and counter speculation reduction is shown insu cient for bounded rational agents Finally a negotiation termination mechanism is discussed that guarantees nding a local optimum in distributed iterative task allocation among certain agent types