Designing normative open virtual enterprises

There is an increasing interest on developing virtual enterprises in order to deal with the globalization of the economy, the rapid growth of information technologies and the increase of competitiveness. In this paper we deal with the development of normative virtual enterprises (NOVEs). They are systems with a global objective that are composed of a set of heterogeneous entities and enterprises that exchange services following a specific normative context. In order to analyze and design systems of this kind the multiagent paradigm seems suitable because it offers a specific solutions for supporting the social and contractual relationships between enterprises and for formalising their business processes. This paper presents how the ROMAS methodology, an agent-oriented software methodology, can be used to analyse and design NOVEs. ROMAS offers a complete development process that allows to identify and formalise the structure of NOVEs, their normative context and the interactions among their members. The use of ROMAS is exemplified by means of a case study that represents an automotive supply chain.