| The contract-net approach in distributed multi-participant decision making has been suggested by several authors as a scheduling tool, but work thus far has been at a conceptual rather than operational level. Our work begins with the development of an operational, flexible contract-net shell. We view this contribution as a means that facilitates our research rather than as an end product.; Our research analyzes the impact of various incentive mechanisms and differing market structures on the performance of a contract-net in scheduling and task allocation for an environment that can be viewed as an FMS. The shell allows us to investigate the repercussions when idiosyncracies are present, when cooperation is required, and when performance ambiguity and opportunism are present. Our experiments yielded the following results: (1) participants responded to competition by submitting bids close to their production costs, and identified idiosyncratic capabilities; (2) participants displayed little or no willingness to cooperate when no penalty for non-cooperation was imposed, but became more cooperative when there was a penalty for non-cooperation; (3) when idiosyncracies were present and cooperation was required without penalty for non-cooperation or cooperation was not required, participants facing performance ambiguity performed less efficiently than the participants not facing performance ambiguity; (4) when idiosyncracies were present, cooperation was required, and a penalty for non-cooperation was imposed, participants facing performance ambiguity performed as competitively as participants not facing performance ambiguity.; Our research incorporates experiments using the induced value approach pioneered by Vernon Smith (1976). Smith suggested that well-designed laboratory experiments, which parallel real-world situations in critical processes, have significant applications in the development and testing of theories. Following presentation and discussion of our experimental results, we provide initial simulation results studying the feasibility of using expert bidding system in an FMS contract-net scheduling environment. |
