Multi-Agent System for Decision Support in Enterprises

Abstract

Business decisions must rely not only on organisations internal data but also on external data from competitors or relevant events. This information can be obtained from the Web but must be integrated  with  the data in an organisations  Data Warehouse  (DW).  In this paper  we discuss   the   agent-based   integration   approach   using   ontologies.   To   enable   common understanding  of a domain between people and application  systems we introduce  business rules   approach   towards   ontology   management.   Because   knowledge   in   organisations ontologies is acquired from business users without technical knowledge simple user interface based on ontology  restrictions  and predefined  templates  are used. After data from internal DW, Web and business rules are acquired; agent can deduce new knowledge and therefore facilitate decision making process. Tasks like information retrieval from competitors, creating and reviewing  OLAP reports are autonomously  performed  by agents, while business users have  control  over  their  execution  through  knowledge  base  in  ontology.  The  approach presented   in  the  paper  was  verified  on  the  case  study  from  the  domain  of  mobile communications   with  the  emphasis  on  supply  and  demand  of  mobile  phones  and  its accessories.