Contract E-Negotiation in Agricultural Supply Chains

Supply chains are composed of distributed, heterogeneous and autonomous elements, whose relationships are dynamic. Agricultural supply chains, in particular, have a number of distinguishing features e.g., they are characterized by strict regulations to ensure safety of food products, and by the need for multi-level traceability. Contracts in such chains need sophisticated specification and management of chain agents – their roles, rights, duties and interaction modes – to ensure auditability. This paper proposes a framework that attacks these problems, which is centered on three main elements to support and manage agent interactions: Contracts, Coordination Plans (a special kind of business process) and Regulations (the business rules). The main contributions are: i) a contract model suitable for agricultural supply chains; ii) a negotiation protocol able to produce such contracts, which allows a wide range of negotiation styles; iii) negotiation implementation via Web services. As a consequence, we maintain independence between business processes and contract negotiation, thereby fostering interoperability among chain processes.