Reference architecture for holonic manufacturing systems: PROSA
Computers in Industry - Special issue on manufacturing systems
Managing information supply chains
Ubiquity
Multi-Agent Systems: An Introduction to Distributed Artificial Intelligence
Multi-Agent Systems: An Introduction to Distributed Artificial Intelligence
Reinforcement Learning
A formal framework for business process modelling and design
Information Systems
A framework for virtual enterprise control with the holonic manufacturing paradigm
Computers in Industry
A framework for virtual enterprise operation management
Computers in Industry
Modeling and specifications of dynamic agents in fractal manufacturing systems
Computers in Industry
The Contract Net Protocol: High-Level Communication and Control in a Distributed Problem Solver
IEEE Transactions on Computers
ICA3PP '09 Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Algorithms and Architectures for Parallel Processing
OCEAN: an ontology for supporting interoperability service utilities in virtual organisations
International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations
Agent-based modeling and simulation of an autonomic manufacturing execution system
Computers in Industry
Agent learning in autonomic manufacturing execution systems for enterprise networking
Computers and Industrial Engineering
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To address competitive threats and concentrate in their core competences and strengths networking is the alternative of choice for survival and prosperity of most small and medium enterprises (SMEs) all over the world. For networking advantages to be fully grasped, an enterprise model describing the main organizational structure and relationships, information flows, management roles, actor behavior and constraints in the network is required. This work presents a conceptual model for SMEs networking based on the fractal company approach and concepts like projects, resources, goals, specialized actors, plans, and relationships thereof. The fractal company idea is a conceptual enterprise design that seeks to achieve a high degree of flexibility to react and adapt quickly to environmental changes using decentralized and autonomous organizational units known as fractals. In this work, each fractal management unit is modeled as a project. The fractal company is thus seen as a temporary set of client-server and delegation-to-do relationships among project-managers interacting so as to diversify product portfolio, gain economy of scale and share expensive costs. The proposed enterprise model can be used to specify the requirements of an integrated information and management system for virtual SMEs networking. The enterprise model is exemplified using a case study related to process development of a new pharmaceutical product in a SME network of the specialty chemical sector.