Agent organisations

AAgent Organisations
Jorge Dias Fernandes
Expedita / UMA, Funchal
Rua da Sé, Nº2 - 4º Andar
9000 FUNCHAL, PORTUGAL
Tel. [phone], Fax [phone]
[e-mail]

1. Abstract
For many years the agent technology has been developed in a theoretic level and in closed systems
(workbenches, simulators). Today, due to the evolution from the Internet related technologies and the dawn of languages like JAV, we are dealing with a growing number of developing tools (libraries, services) that allow us to deploy working multi-agent systems into the bussiness market. Systems were agents are able to comunicate between themselves and with the human users, and sometimes even navigate between diferent computers.
Stiil, there are some issues that separate these tools from a total integration with the organisations information systems. Namely, an explicit knowledge from the agents about the organisational structure and data, and development tools to design the agent society in accordance with the human organisation.
Our present work intends to consolidate in multi-agent societies the concept of collective agent and of agent organisations. For that goal we have developed a methodology that allows us to model an organisation both at an informal and a formal level. From this model is then possible to implement a multi -agent society that reflects the analysed organisational structure.
W ith this paper we intend to bridge the gap between the area of multi -agent systems and areas like System
Analysis, Management, or Operational Research. It's content include an introduction to the Beer Viable System
Model and it's application in modelling artificial agent societies. At the end we present a case study and show how agents can be used to help the day-to-day work in a company.

2. Introduction
Looking closely to some of the best-succeeded applications of multi-agent systems available today, we can distinguish two different areas of use.