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Semantic Knowledge Transparency in E-Business Processes
HQWDLOVWKHEX\HU¶VSUHIHUHQFHVRIVSHFL¿FVXSSOLHU characteristics, including supplier capabilities for product quality and production capacity. This is a discovery activity that comprises custom-ers and suppliers searching for a match of their requirements in the infomediaries. The result of this activity is the discovery of a set of suppliers capable of meeting their needs. Typically, custom-ers will then engage in internal decision making activity to select a supplier, from the discovered set, that best meets their needs. Such a decision SURFHVVPD\EHLQÀXHQFHGE\KLVWRULFDOLQIRU-mation such as past experiences of customers’ reliability and trustworthiness of the supplier. ,QDGGLWLRQWKHGHFLVLRQLVLQÀXHQFHGE\PDU-ket dimensions including suppliers’ reputation, logistics providers, warehousing providers, and other entities represented in the e-marketplace. Together, these lead to the selection of a supplier, from a set of discovered suppliers that satisfy the buyer requirements.
The infomediary business model can provide valuable information to this decision processes by serving as the knowledge repository of transac-tional histories for both customers and suppliers. 2QFHDVXSSOLHULVLGHQWL¿HGWKHLQIRPHGLDU\ performs a transaction facilitation role and enables WKHÀRZRILQIRUPDWLRQEHWZHHQWKHFXVWRPHUDQG VXSSOLHUVZKLFKOHDGVWRWKHÀRZRIWDQJLEOHJRRGV or services and the completion of the trade. The agents’ communications in an intelligent-agent, infomediary-based e-marketplace and its archi-tecture are shown in Figure 4. The architecture of the intelligent-agent infomediary-based e-mar-ketplace consists of buyer and supplier agents that represent the behaviors of buyers and suppliers business enterprises respectively. A common repository of information/knowledge for sharing and reusing relevant knowledge. Moreover, the infomediary functions (i.e., discovery, facilitation of transaction, and support of knowledge inten-sive decisions) are accomplished through three agent types: (1) discovery agents, (2) transaction agents, and (3) authenticated monitoring agents.
Here, buyer and seller agents must register with the infomediary to be allowed to execute transac-tions. The monitoring agent is responsible for the coordination of discovery agents across multiples e-marketplaces. The interested reader is referred to Singh, Salam, et al. (2005) for a complete discussion about intelligent-agent, infomediary-based e-marketplace.
Semantic knowledge transparency in the e-marketplace provides critical input to the supplier discovery and selection decision problem while reducing the transaction and search costs for the buyer organization. Infomediaries coordinate DQG DJJUHJDWH LQIRUPDWLRQ ÀRZV WR VXSSRUW e-business processes and provide value-added services to enhance the information processes of the e-marketplace through deciphering complex product information and providing independent and observed assessment of the commitment of individual buyers and sellers. Infomediaries play a vital role in the exchange of knowledge and information in these knowledge networks embedded within inter-organizational value FKDLQV7KHWUDQVSDUHQWÀRZRILQIRUPDWLRQDQG SUREOHPVSHFL¿FNQRZOHGJHDFURVVFROODERUDW-ing organizations, over systems that exhibit high levels of integration, is required in order to enable such inter-organizational, e-business process coordination. Otherwise, the transaction cost for each buyer organization would include costs of evaluating individual suppliers; logistics and transportation companies; warehousing providers; among other organizations. In addition, the buyer organization would incur costs of setting up ad hoc coordination structures that integrate across these companies while optimizing the decision problem on an individual basis. An e-marketplace that provides knowledge-based services reduces buyer search costs and buyer transaction costs by providing knowledge about the complete e-business process.
Coordinating complex inter-organizational e-business processes requires an integrated view of the complete inter-organizational e-business
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Semantic Knowledge Transparency in E-Business Processes
Figure 4. Agent communications in an intelligent-agent infomediary-based e-marketplace
process and requires knowledge-driven coor-dination with intelligent support to determine decision authority and knowledge sources (Anand & Mendelson, 1997). This requires integrative knowledge-based semantic architecture with rea-soning and inference mechanisms to reason with knowledge about business processes. Integrative systems, as integral parts of coordination struc-tures, offer enhanced matchmaking of resources and coordination of activities for inter-organi-zational e-business process and allow organiza-tions to respond to dynamic customer demand HI¿FLHQWO\DQGHIIHFWLYHO\,QWHOOLJHQWDJHQWVKDYH been shown to support the processing of complex information and help reduce the cognitive load of decision makers. An agent enabled infomediary-
based e-marketplace incorporates intelligence in the discovery of buyers and suppliers and in the facilitation of transactional roles (Singh, Salam, et al., 2005). Such an e-marketplace provides the basis for creating ad hoc coordination structures and collaborative mechanisms for transactions through the e-marketplace mechanism, thereby DOORZLQJIRUWKHÀH[LELOLW\DQGG\QDPLFVLQEXVL-ness processes required to compete in a dynamic competitive environment (Iyer, Singh, & Salam, 2005).
Moreover, semantic knowledge transpar-ency allows for cross e-marketplace semanti-cally enriched communication, so that dynamic and transparent planning of demand and supply requirements through real-time information
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Semantic Knowledge Transparency in E-Business Processes
integration across trading partners of the value chain can optimally occur. This information ÀRZFRQWDLQVNH\PDUNHWFRQGLWLRQVSRWHQWLDO volatile aggregate demand volume; product in-formation represented in standard ontologies; and market participant reputation information based on transaction histories and reported levels RIVDWLVIDFWLRQWKDWFDQEH³XQGHUVWRRG´E\WKH intelligent agent to make decisions on behalf of their business enterprises (buyers/suppliers). In addition, this relevant information from a single e-marketplace can be made available to authorized participants in related e-marketplaces. As a result, suppliers in downstream e-marketplaces in the value chain can integrate their production plans with market-supplied, upstream demand and, at the same time, generate demand functions for downstream e-marketplaces. Subsequently, the DLs for all the software agents of the e-market-place are developed.
In the context of the intelligent, infomedi-ary-based e-marketplace, buyer, supplier, and infomediary are each a business enterprise de-scribed as
Buyer
( BusinessEnterprise ) (=1 HasID StringData) ( >1 HasAddress Address)
( >1 HasDescription StringData) ( >1 HasReputation StringData)
( >1 IsRepresentedBy BuyerAgent)
( >1 Has TransactionSatisfactionHistory StringData)
Supplier
( BusinessEnterprise )
(= 1 HasID StringData) ( >1 HasAddress Address)
( >1 HasDescription StringData) ( >1 HasReputation StringData)
( >1 IsRepresentedBy SupplierAgent)
( >1 Has TransactionSatisfactionHistory StringData)
Infomediary
( BusinessEnterprise )
(= 1 HasID StringData)
( >1 HasDescription StringData) ( >1 HasAddress Address)
( >1 IsRepresentedBy RegistrationAgent)
( >1 IsRepresentedBy DiscoveryAgent)
( >1 IsRepresentedBy TransactionAgent)
A buyer agent represents a buyer business enterprise in the infomediary-based e-market-place.
BuyerAgent
( SoftwareAgent)
(=1 Represents.Buyer)
( >1 Performs.ObtainsOntology)
( >1 Performs.CommunicateBuyerNeeds) ( >1 Performs.ReceiveDiscoverdSuppliers)
( >1 Performs.CommunicateContract) ( >1 Performs.ReceiveContract)
( >1 Performs.AuthorizesTransaction)
( >1 Performs.CommunicatesSatisfaction-Level)
A supplier agent represents a supplier busi-ness enterprise in the infomediary-based e-mar-ketplace.
SupplierAgent
( SoftwareAgent)
(=1 Represents.Supplier)
( >1 Performs.ObtainsOntology)
( >1 Performs.CommunicatesSupplierCapa-bilities)
( >1 Performs.ProvideSupplierAgreement)
( >1 Pe rforms.CommunicatesSatisfac-
tionLevel)
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Semantic Knowledge Transparency in E-Business Processes
The discovery agent and the transaction agents represent the infomediary business enterprise in the transactions presented in the following examples:
DiscoveryAgent
( SoftwareAgent)
(=1 Represents.Infomediary)
(>1 Performs.DiscoverSuppliers)
in this chapter. Standardized XML-based prod-uct ontologies may be based upon the emergent global standards such as the UN/CEFACT ebXML (www.ebxml.org) standard for Global Electronic Commerce thereby ensuring standardization in the information interchange and interoperability among global partners.
In the following section, we provide the onto-ORJLFDOHQJLQHHULQJXVLQJ`/EDVHGGH¿QLWLRQV
(>1 Performs.RequestSupplierAgreement)
(>1 Performs ReceiveSupplierAgreement)
for the activity resource coordination. We utilize the aforementioned discovery and supplier selec-tion process in infomediary-based e-marketplaces
TransactionAgent
( SoftwareAgent)
(=1 Represents.Infomediary) (>1 Performs.InitiateTransaction)
In addition to the previous ontologies for the buyer and supplier business enterprise, the infome-diary organization maintains product ontologies. We do not explicitly model the product ontologies
as examples of e-business processes problem domains to illustrate the process knowledge and the activity resource coordination mechanism. We utilize DL as the knowledge representation formalism for expressing structured knowledge in a format that is amenable for intelligent software agents to reason with it in a normative manner. Understanding the inherent relationships among business processes within and between organi-zations is a key topic of the information systems
Figure 5. Use-case diagram for supplier discovery based on buyer needs
Buyer/Supplier Discovery
Communicate buyer needs
Buyer requirements
Buyer preferences
Buyer agent
Discover suppliers
Receive discovered suppliers
Discovery agent
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Semantic Knowledge Transparency in E-Business Processes
¿HOG 7KH XVH RI VWDQGDUG `/ LQ GHYHORSLQJ semantic models allows this approach to be a truly implementable framework using W3C’s OWL and OWL-DL without loosing theoretical robustness.
supplier reputation are presented next. It is impor-tant to highlight that these demand requirement characteristics are intended to serve as examples, and they are not exhaustive.
Ontological Engineering for Infomediary-Enabled Buyer/Supplier Discovery Process
As it can be seen in Figure 4, buyer agents pres-ent buyer needs to the e-marketplace by com-municating the buyer requirements and buyer preferences. The discovery agent uses the buyer needs to discover a set of suppliers that are able
1. Buyers communicate their needs to the e-marketplace using standardized ontology for specifying the buyer needs.
BuyerNeeds (Resource)
(= 1 hasCharacteristics . BuyerID) (= 1 CoordinatesFlowProducedBy . ComunicateBuyerNeeds)
(= 1 CoordinatesFlowConsumedBy . DiscoverSuppliers)
to meet buyer requirements and match the buyer preferences. The set of discovered suppliers are communicated to the buyer enterprises through the buyer agent. It is noteworthy to mention that the process of supplier discovery is an iterative process that culminates with the buyer’s selection of a supplier. This is represented in the use-case diagram in Figure 5.
Using the use-case diagram shown in Figure 5 as a model, the DL descriptions to represent the buyer’s needs, including buyer requirements and buyer preferences, supplier capabilities, and
a. The BuyerNeeds resource abstracts the specialized buyer requirements and buyer needs as shown in Figure 6. This inheritance hierarchy of buyer needs illustrates the ability to specify meta-knowledge of processes and in-VWDQWLDWHWKHLQGLYLGXDOZRUNÀRZVXVLQJ multiple types of resources that inherit from the same parent resource used in WKHSURFHVVNQRZOHGJHVSHFL¿FDWLRQ
Figure 6. Buyer needs is an abstraction for the buyer requirements and buyer preferences involved in the supplier selection e-business process
Buyer Needs Inheritance
The Supplier Discovery Business Process is invoked for Buyer Requirements or Buyer Preference Resources
Resource:
Buyer Needs
Resource:
Buyer Requirements
Resource:
Buyer Preferences
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