Wolf Ketter's Publications

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Design and Analysis of the MinneTAC-03 Supply-Chain Trading Agent

Wolfgang Ketter, Elena Kryzhnyaya, Steven Damer, Colin McMillen, Amrudin Agovic, John Collins, and Maria Gini. Design and Analysis of the MinneTAC-03 Supply-Chain Trading Agent. Technical Report 04-016, University of Minnesota, Dept of Computer Science and Engineering, 2004.

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Abstract

MinneTAC is an agent designed to compete in the Supply-Chain Trading Agent Competition. It is also designed to support the needs of a group of researchers, each of whom is interested in different decision problems related to the competition scenario. The design of MinneTAC breaks out each basic behavior into a separate, configurable component. Dependencies between components are almost non-existent. This design allows each user to focus on a single problem and work independently, and it allows multiple user to tackle the same problem in different ways. This paper describes the design of MinneTAC and evaluates its effectiveness in support of our research agenda, and in its competitiveness in the TAC-SCM game environment. We also describe two sales strategies used by MinneTAC. Both strategies estimate, as the game progresses, the probability of receiving a customer order for different prices and compute the expected profit. Offers are made to maximize the expected profit on each order. The main difference between the two strategies is in how the probability of receiving an order and the offer prices are computed. The first strategy works well in high-demand games, the second was developed to improve performance in low-demand games. We empirically analyze the effect of the discount given by suppliers on orders received the first day of the game, and we show that in high-demand games there is a strong correlation between the offers an agent receives from suppliers on the first day of the game and the agent's performance in the game.

BibTeX

@TechReport{Ketter04tr,
  author =       "Wolfgang Ketter and Elena Kryzhnyaya and Steven Damer
                  and Colin McMillen and Amrudin Agovic and John Collins
                  and Maria Gini",
  title =        "Design and Analysis of the {MinneTAC-03 Supply-Chain
		Trading Agent}",
  year =         "2004",
  abstract = " MinneTAC is an agent designed to compete in the
  Supply-Chain Trading Agent Competition.  It is also designed to
  support the needs of a group of researchers, each of whom is
  interested in different decision problems related to the competition
  scenario. The design of MinneTAC breaks out each basic behavior into
  a separate, configurable component.  Dependencies between components
  are almost non-existent.  This design allows each user to focus on a
  single problem and work independently, and it allows multiple user
  to tackle the same problem in different ways.  This paper describes
  the design of MinneTAC and evaluates its effectiveness in support of
  our research agenda, and in its competitiveness in the TAC-SCM game
  environment.  We also describe two sales strategies used by
  MinneTAC.  Both strategies estimate, as the game progresses, the
  probability of receiving a customer order for different prices and
  compute the expected profit.  Offers are made to maximize the
  expected profit on each order.  The main difference between the two
  strategies is in how the probability of receiving an order and the
  offer prices are computed.  The first strategy works well in
  high-demand games, the second was developed to improve performance
  in low-demand games.  We empirically analyze the effect of the
  discount given by suppliers on orders received the first day of the
  game, and we show that in high-demand games there is a strong
  correlation between the offers an agent receives from suppliers on
  the first day of the game and the agent's performance in the game.",
  institution =  "University of Minnesota, Dept of Computer Science
		and Engineering",
  number =       "04-016",
  address =      "Minneapolis, MN",
  bib2html_pubtype = {Unrefereed},
  bib2html_rescat = {Trading Agents: Supply-Chain Management},
}

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