Order confirmation mechanism for collaborative production networks

To avert risk, today's companies perform business with little capital investment. They invest only on the core activities which gain higher profit and outsource non-critical production activities to their partner companies (subcontractors or sourcing companies). Hence, a customer order is normally completed by a collaborative production network formed by the partner companies. However, co-ordinating those loosely and distributed companies to meet the uncertain demands from the final customers is not simple. This research suggests an order confirmation mechanism that allows synchronizing the available capacities over the supply network. The mechanism is developed based on a factory agent system and a design of three protocols: (1) protocol for normal condition, (2) protocol for abnormal condition, and (3) protocol for cancellation. Based on the protocols, messages and procedures are designed. The design is also deployed on a distributed computing environment to illustrate the feasibility and applicability.