@INPROCEEDINGS{gruenert2007proposal,
  author = {Andreas Gr\"{u}nert and Sven Kaffille and Guido Wirtz},
  title = {A Proposal for a Decentralized Multi-Agent Architecture for
Virtual
	Enterprises},
  booktitle = {The Nineteenth International Conference on Software
Engineering and
	Knowledge Engineering (SEKE 2007)},
  year = {2007},
  abstract = {Today, enterprises need more flexibility than ever before,
but classic
	companies often cannot meet this requirement. Therefore, a more
	flexible kind of enterprise evolved: The Virtual Enterprise. One
	reason why Virtual Enterprises are that flexible is their extensive
	use of IT. Yet, given the temporary  character of Virtual Enterprises,
	existing software concepts are often not applicable. Multi-Agent
	Systems (MAS) may help to solve this problem. Actually, MAS  based
	solutions have already been developed for diverse problems (mainly)
	of the Virtual Enterprise performance layer. However, a concept
	that allows cooperating agents to support the management of the
	complete life-cycle of a  Virtual Enterprise, is still missing.
	This paper attends to that gap. It defines an agent supported Virtual
	Enterprise life-cycle and proposes an abstract architecture for
	organizing a virtual enterprise  based on a structured, multi-layered
	organization of agents. In doing so, the infra-structure for the
	next steps, i.e. elaborating the detailed ontologies and protocols,
	is provided.},
}