Agent-Based Management Systems in Logistics

In logistics of today's economy we have to deal with distributed systems. To support the demanding management task the multi-agent approach offers promising perspectives. For human or- ganizations a socio-technical system is to be handled. The theory of organizational cybernetics provides basic knowledge about structure- theoretic foundations to reach organizational fitness. For the design of management systems based on a multi-agent concept, we try to adopt as much as possible of the insight valid for human based socio- technical systems to the agent world. We particularly focus on iden- tifying the main characteristics for design of management systems in order to achieve the ability to master a system in a dynamic environ- ment evolving in a short and long-term horizon. Tasks in production and distribution logistics have to be accom- plished within networks on the physical as well as on the informa- tional level in today's global economy. On the physical level systems are locally distributed over large areas, sometimes worldwide, the information system is based on an intra or internet data network any- way. This system layout is a particular challenge for the control task, a distributed system has to be controlled in a dynamic fast changing environment. This requires the ability to react to events and evolu- tions in the system's environment as well as within the system itself in the short and long time range in a way to guarantee the envisaged short- and long-term goals of the system. We have to deal with the control of distributed systems in which a larger number of actors (individuals) and agents (software objects) have to take decisions. These decisions have to be co-ordinated and directed towards the global goals of the system. If we consider ac- tors, a socio-technical system has to be handled. For the planning and control task the theory of organizational cybernetics provides basic insight, whereas for automated systems or computer-based de- cision support tools, the multi-agent approach offers promising per- spectives. System control as we have in mind for logistics systems embed- ded in a dynamic environment is a management task. Satisfactory solutions can't be obtained by viewing the control task simply as a sequence of single decisions. Therefore we propose to design multi- agent systems in logistics as similar as possible to socio-technical systems with human actors and rely on the available theoretical back- ground of organizational cybernetics.