A flexible, agent-based ICT infrastructure for virtual enterprises

Virtual enterprises (VEs), in our view, are conglomerates of regular enterprises that collaborate on an ad hoc basis to carry out an inter-organisational business process. The virtual enterprise has a dynamic structure that depends on the particular process that needs to be carried out. Enterprises can join or leave the virtual enterprise at short notice, depending on the capacity and the opportunity. In recent papers, we studied the use of a mobile agent framework to support the co-ordination of the primary process in a virtual enterprise. We argued that the installation of standard software modules, called service bridges or docks, at the participant enterprises provides a suitable infrastructure for the use of mobile agents for this purpose.