Intelligent Agent Supported Supply-chain Quality Monitoring and Management

The Chinese milk scandal broke on July 16, 2008, after sixteen infants in Gansu Province, who had been fed on milk powder produced by the Sanlu Group, were diagnosed with kidney stones. The World Health Organisation referred to the incident as one of the largest food safety events it has had to deal with in recent years. This case represents a breakdown of the quality chain over the whole milk powder supply chain. In addition, control over quality measures is limited, when continuous monitoring of the variables in the chain is essential to provide solid information for inference and decision makings.Traditional SCQM (Supply Chain Quality Management) focuses on quality assurance within an organization, which is not optimal for modern inter-organizational supply-chain problems, such as the SanLu case. In this project, SCQM is supported by a number of intelligent agents, which can be classified into a number of categories: data collection agents, monitoring agents, diagnostic agents, resolution agents, etc. These intelligent agents are able to work together to reach intelligent monitoring and management. The research outcomes are able to provide researchers and practitioners with a conceptual framework of decision making strategies as well as practical solutions.