Multi-Agent System for Decision Support in Enterprises

Abstract

Business decisions must rely not only on organisation’s internal data but also on external data from competitors or relevant events. This information can be obtained from the Web but must be integrated with the data in an organisation’s Data Warehouse (DW). In this paper we discuss the agent-based integration approach using ontologies. To enable common understanding of a domain between people and application systems we introduce business rules approach towards ontology management. Because knowledge in organisation’s ontologies is acquired from business users without technical knowledge simple user interface based on ontology restrictions and predefined templates are used. After data from internal DW, Web and business rules are acquired; agent can deduce new knowledge and therefore facilitate decision making process. Tasks like information retrieval from competitors, creating and reviewing OLAP reports are autonomously performed by agents, while business users have control over their execution through knowledge base in ontology. The approach presented in the paper was verified on the case study from the domain of mobile communications with the emphasis on supply and demand of mobile phones and its accessories.