Abstract:

Multi-agent systems (MAS) are increasingly being applied in industrial contexts to address complex decision-making problems, mainly in the domain of purchasing and procurement, negotiating with minimal or no human intervention to achieve more beneficial agreements. They are also applied in other areas, such as logistics, production scheduling, and work task organisation. Despite their growing relevance, the integration of MAS-based negotiation concepts into postgraduate education related to these domains remains limited and has not been fully exploited as a teaching and decision-making tool. This article presents a proposed curriculum map for Master’s Degree in Organization and Logistics (MUIOL) at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, illustrating how the problem areas of MAS correspond to the issues addressed in the different subjects, which is also applicable to other postgraduate programmes focused on supply chain management.

Through a systematic review of the literature on MAS, four main problem areas were identified:
(i) allocation of logistics tasks (shipping and collection),
(ii) production scheduling,
(iii) allocation of project tasks and resource negotiation, and
(iv) purchasing and negotiation with suppliers, highlighting opportunities to integrate examples of MAS negotiation into the curriculum.

The analysis demonstrates that autonomous negotiation represents a cross-cutting competence that improves students' understanding of coordination, optimisation, and decision-making in Industry 4.0 environments.

Keywords:

Multi-Agent Systems, Postgraduate Education, Supply Chain Management, Decision-Making.