Resumo

PAVLOVIC, Martin; KOUMBOULIS, Fotis N.; TZAMTZI, Maria P.  e  ROZMAN, Crtomir. Role of automation agents in agribusiness decision support systems. Agrociencia [online]. 2008, vol.42, n.8, pp.913-923. ISSN 2521-9766.

Various automation agents can be embedded in a modern Decision Support System in agriculture, based on the following design approaches: E-Learning Agent, Monitoring Agent, Fault Diagnosis Agent, Weather Information Agent, E-Commerce Agent and Logistics Agent. The proposed Agents contribute to farmers' education, to timely correct fault diagnosis and the incorporation of modern agricultural techniques. Moreover, they allow processing historical data, while taking into account several factors in order to support decision making. The preliminary Automation Agents for Decision Support Systems (AADSS) model idea may be applied to various agribusiness activities on international level. Moreover, an operator agent is proposed, that exploits technological and economic information gathered from all the aforementioned Automation Agents in order to make decisions regarding the proposal of possible scenarios in a chain of raw material production to a final product. An initiative to develop and introduce stepwise a model for hop industry decision support system with embedded automation agents has been launched within the International Hop Growers' Convention (IHGC). It is intended to support growers, merchants and brewers through their various decision making activities in agribusiness. The first concept results validate the application of a model for future research.

Palavras-chave : Applied computer modelling; decision support systems; forecasting; IHGC; information management.