A commitment-oriented framework for networked manufacturing co-ordination

In the rapidly changing world of market place evolution and pressures, many authors have studied new organizational forms. Within these new trends, th is paper deals particularly with network organizations. An approach is thus proposed to integrate the overall business organization and to co-ordinate the business processes involved in achieving the overall organization goal s. In this study, integration is concerned with the implementation of colla borative information structures, enabling efficient operation management an d control among heterogeneous business entities. Thus, based on the contrac t theory from economic science, philosophical work done on conventions and the multiagent systems paradigm, a commitment-oriented co-ordination framew ork for business integration is proposed. These concepts present a new comp rehensive formalization of business collaboration within networked manufact uring, insofar as they concern the modelling of many kinds of business inte ractions, including collaborative contingencies management and collaboratio n performance measurement. In order to illustrate this approach, a multiage nt prototype using the commitment-oriented approach is finally presented.