Flexible Decision Control in an Autonomous Trading Agent

Collins, John; Ketter, Wolfgang; Gini, Maria

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Flexible Decision Control in an Autonomous Trading Agent

ERIM Report Series Reference No. ERS-2007-079-LIS

39 Pages Posted: 10 Dec 2007

See all articles by John Collins

University of Cologne - Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences; Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) - Department of Technology and Operations Management; Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM)

Maria Gini

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities - Computer Science and Engineering

Date Written: 19 2007, 11

Abstract

An autonomous trading agent is a complex piece of software that must operate in a competitive economic environment and support a research agenda. We describe the structure of decision processes in the MinneTAC trading agent, focusing on the use of evaluators – configurable, composable modules for data analysis and prediction that are chained together at runtime to support agent decision-making. Through a set of examples, we show how this structure supports sales and procurement decisions, and how those decision processes can be modified in useful ways by changing evaluator configurations. To put this work in context, we also report on results of an informal survey of agent design approaches among the competitors in the Trading Agent Competition for Supply Chain Management (TAC SCM).

Keywords: autonomous trading agent, decision processes

JEL Classification: L15, O32, M, c61, c78

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Collins, John and Ketter, Wolfgang and Gini, Maria L, Flexible Decision Control in an Autonomous Trading Agent (19 2007, 11). ERIM Report Series Reference No. ERS-2007-079-LIS, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1069325