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IAF Calls & Action Lines
Non-holistic agents
(Patrick De Causmaecker, KaHo Sint-Lieven)
Agents are essentially non holistic. They are small components in a larger system, communicating with each other about the subject, which concerns them. They are typically specialized in one problem domain, and do not know about other domains.
In contrast the systems in which they are to function are essentially holistic. These systems govern whole businesses, from the management layers to the cells of the production system. They are concerned with the supply chain as a whole but must be able to access a simple QC unit to obtain the data.
To obtain optionally functioning agents, these must be constructed by specialized groups. For commercial competitiveness, these groups should be able to produce agents for a diverse set of systems. They need a marketplace for their small components optimising the system functions in a specific domain.
The traditional way to arrive at such a marketplace is to impose an ontology for the domain. Another way, which we want to pursue, is to design mapping tools for systems not designed for compliance to ontology. This approach will enable agents to find their way in foreign territory. They will become useful for systems which have often been optimised over the years and should thus be disturbed as little as possible.
See also the abstract "An ontology for planning applications" (Peter Demeester)
- Presentation slides
- e-mail: Patrick.DeCausmaecker@kahosl.be
- URL: http://www2.kahosl.be/~patdc