"Towards Agile Scheduling in Extended Enterprise"
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Ricardo J. Rabelo ;  L.M. Camarinha-Matos
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(kadu@uninova.pt)     (cam@uninova.pt)
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New University of Lisbon and UNINOVA - 2825  Monte da Caparica  -  Portugal<BR>
Telephone : (+ 351 1) 3500230 / 3500224 / 3500200          <BR>
Fax : (+ 351 1) 2957786 / 2941253<BR>

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ABSTRACT<BR>
This paper presents the UNL's approach to extend the HOLOS agile scheduling system towards the extended enterprise. The concept of extended enterprise and related problems are brought up, as well as the notion of agile scheduling. The HOLOS system architecture is briefly explained. The necessity to develop a high level decision support system (DSS) to manage the scheduling of a business process during its production in the network of enterprises is emphasized, as well as its main functions are presented. A general framework to integrate the DSS with the scheduling system is also shown. Finally, a flexible communication infrastructure to support the integration of an enterprise in the network is introduced.

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KEYWORDS<BR>
Agile Scheduling, Extended Enterprise, Distributed Business Process, Multiagent
Systems