Agentized development and deployment of virtual enterprises

The ACTS projects MIAMI has two major goals: development of an enhanced MASIF compliant platform and validation of the platform in a pan-European test-bed trial. This paper focuses on the application built on top of the MIAMI platform. Agent technology has the potential to cope with the present lack of technical support for the developement and deployment of virtual enterprises. Two innovative concepts are discussed: the Virtual Enterprise Builder, a tool that assists in building a new Virtual Enterprise, and the concept of the Active Virtual Pipe, which supports the process execution and management within a Virtual Enterprise.