Using Competency Questions to Evaluate an Agent-based Model for Virtual Enterprises

This paper presents an agent-based model to support the formation of Virtual Enterprises, where the partners of a Virtual Enterprise are represented by software agents. The model describes the main concepts: goals, activities, roles, the requirements for the roles, the agents� skill and competencies and the relationships among these different concepts. We believe that in order to be able to provide the necessary support, the model must be able to provide answers to questions such as what are the skills required to perform a particular activity, or what goal(s) does a partner contribute to? We evaluate our model by applying such questions derived from literature and a series of case studies.