Study on Agent-based Negotiation strategy for construction supply chain

The cooperative relationship of construction supply chain (CSC) has become an important aspect for construction enterprisec due to design-build (DB) project competitive pressures. While a General Contractor (GC) intend to participate in a DB project and cooperate with CSC partners, it is difficult for them to reach an agreement in terms of sharing costs, risks, and profits. The fragment nature of construction industry weakens the alliance relationship and sometimes even destroys the cooperation to submit a bid. Therefore, when the cooperation between GC and subcontractors is necessary, the negotiation to reach an agreement is critical to the success of DB projects. This paper deals with the problem of subcontract procurement in the DB tendering preparation stage. Firstly, the characteristic of CSC procurement is presented to describe the negotiation feature. Then based on theory of negotiation, an overall framework is proposed to describe the bargain process between the general contractor and subcontractor. The negotiation protocol and concession strategy is modified for CSC procurement negotiation. As one part of the research of subcontract sourcing autonomous negotiation multi-agent-based for general contractor, this study is a win-win method to settle the conflict in CSC relationship.