Cloud-based multi-agent supply chain system architecture

Abstract

Efficient supply chain management is a key challenge for many organizations. This becomes even critical and complicated when the goods that these organizations deal with are considered to be life saving. The Kenya Medical Supplies Agency (KEMSA) whose mandate is to procure, store and distribute drugs and health commodities to health facilities in Kenya has not be spared by this challenge. Secondary research suggests that the main problems in KEMSA include uneven distribution of healthcare services or drugs, ineffective and inefficient supply chain systems and low availability and accessibility of healthcare products occasioned by lack of a supply management system. The development of multi agent concepts in Artificial Intelligence in recent years provides an opportunity to explore the possibility of deployment of such concepts to further enhance the supply chain systems. Cloud computing on the other hand is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a metered service over a network. This is an applied research and semi-structured interviews and secondary data were used. This research sought to develop architecture for a multi-agent supply chain system around a cloud in an attempt to address the supply chain management and delivery challenges at KEMSA. This research then recommended this architecture as a foundation on which Supply Chain Management software for KEMSA or other interested organizations can be built on