A Multiagent System For Selecting Suppliers In Construction Industry (Id : Ch004)

Bidding is a critical decision process as it would determine whether a contractor can win a construction contract at a reasonable profit margin. Among various factors affecting the bidding decisions, the selection of suitable suppliers for the provision of various construction materials is one of the most important aspects in ensuring bid and project success. Despite that, in the absence of time at the bidding stage, the negotiation with suppliers is normally carried out in a crude and unstructured manner, and the terms and prices for material supply could be far from ideal. In this paper, a new technology, the Multi-Agent System (MAS) based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be introduced to simulate the actual negotiation process in selecting suppliers in construction industry. Automated negotiation using the MAS concept can reduce the response time and maximize the expected profit should a suitable negotiation protocol be devised. The MAS for Negotiating Suppliers (MASNS) is to be established by designing the negotiation protocol, concession mechanism, learning mechanism, and will be finally programmed using developing tool-Agentbuilder in the future. Although some limitations were found in the study, the MASNS appears to have great potential in problem domain, and it could provide a solid foundation for further study of a MAS for the sourcing of suppliers for construction projects.