Agent-based decision support systems for the industry: Application to transportation and distribution of energy products and water supply networks

A distributed approach, specifically the multi-agent paradigm, is evaluated as methodology for designing Decision Support Systems (DSS). The main properties of multi-agent systems (MAS) theory such as modularity, leaning abilities, and autonomy, are exploited to overcome weaknesses of current DSS design approaches. The approach has been evaluated as proof of concept on two scenarios from the natural gas pipelines operations. Preliminary results on the small scale system tested are promising showing that the proposed approach is feasible. Some remarks about implementation requirements and challenges to be addressed in the future conclude the paper.