Requirements for an Agent-based Approach to Support Virtual Enterprises

In this paper, we present the requirements for an agent-based approach to support the formation of Virtual Enterprises by analysing the approach using two industrial case studies. We believe that there are two important aspects of selecting the partners for a Virtual Enterprise; (i) matching the correct partner to the requirements, and (ii) the process in which the partners are evaluated and selected. Our analysis showed that the system must provide support for a language to represent the capabilities of the partner, the evaluation of different kinds of partners, flexibility in defining the evaluation criteria, the selection process and the negotiation process.