A Multi-Agent based Decision Framework for Sustainable Supplier Selection, Order Allocation and Routing Problem

Abstract

Supply chain decisions should aim for sustainability, in order to meet the global market needs, as well as the Industry 4.0 requirements, therefore they should consider beyond economic and environmental, societal dimensions as well. The complexity in decision making increases, moreover, supply network relationships become important, including inter-relationships and those developed with the suppliers. Agent technology is compatible with Industry 4.0, whereas multi-agent systems (MAS) can provide decision support for supply chain management and model the relatationships and interactions between entities in the supply chain environment. Therefore, in this paper, a MAS-based framework is proposed to address sustainability focused decision making in supplier selection, order allocation and routing. Fuzzy Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) approaches and multi-objective programming are used by the agents in the MAS in order to adress sustainability requirements. Futrhermore, developed agent services for the supply chain business processes are integrated with web services, in order to facilitate business process execution as web services.