Interacting with the supply swarm: Towards an interactive and visual management of supply webs

In a complex supply web many companies and their supply chains are integrated. While homogenous agent systems like factories can be controlled by the company, this does not apply for supply webs. They show a swarm-like emergent behavior, which follows rules not fully controllable. This paper covers three stages necessary to achieve a visual management of such a complex system: (1) multi-multiagent system (MMAS) technology is used for inter-company communication and integration. (2) Decentralized object-oriented processes and semantic models are introduced on top to dynamically adapt system behavior but still maintain control. (3) Model-based interaction concepts are applied for integration of users into an MMAS-based supply web as well as for interaction with the processes executed and interactive control.