TAC SCM Survey Alberto Sardinha Norman Sadeh e-Supply Chain Management Lab Carnegie Mellon University

TAC SCM Survey

Alberto SardinhaNorman Sadeh

e-Supply Chain Management LabCarnegie Mellon University

Outline

Results of the TAC SCM Survey 55 Respondents from

From 30 different organizations From 15 different countries

The survey was conducted between May 20, 2006 and June 3, 2006.

Question 1

Enter your name and that of your organization

Number of Respondents per Organization

Question 2

Indicate each of the years when you had an entry in the TAC-SCM tournament

Indicate each of the years when you had an entry in the TAC-SCM tournament

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45

2003

2004

2005

2006

No entry so far

Number of OrganizationsNumber of Respondents

Question 3

If you had entries in 2005 or earlier but didn’t enter the competition in 2006, what was (were) the main reason(s)?

If you had entries in 2005 or earlier but didn’t enter the competition in 2006, what was (were) the main reason(s)

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Dates of the 2006tournament were too tight

Tired of trying to win

Entry fee is too high

Other (please specify)

Number of Respondents

If you had entries in 2005 or earlier but didn’t enter the competition in 2006, what was (were) the main reason(s)

Most common answers*:

Busy Schedule Joined another team The current game does not provide enough

opportunities for machine learning

(*) This is a subset of the answers. The full text is provided separately

Question 4

Assuming that the 2007 competition takes place in July-August, which of the following would increase/decrease the chances you participate?

Which of the following would increase/decrease the chances you participate?

Keep everything as is

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Wouldsignif icantly

DECREASE thechance I

participate

Wouldsomew hat


participate

NEUTRAL Wouldsomew hat

INCREASE thechance I

participate

Wouldsignif icantly


participate


Additional awards to recognize best agents in different categories

05

1015202530

Wouldsignif icantly


participate

Wouldsomew hat


participate



participate

Wouldsignif icantly


participate


Introduction of specifications aimed at bringing the game closer to current supply chain

management practices

0

5

10

15

20

25

Wouldsignif icantly


participate

Wouldsomew hat


participate



participate

Wouldsignif icantly


participate


Simplified specifications

0

510

15

2025

30

Wouldsignif icantly


participate

Wouldsomew hat


participate



participate

Wouldsignif icantly


participate


e.g. semi-finals with 24 agents and finals with 12 agents, being mixed and matched for a couple of days

New tournament rules

0

510

15

2025

30

Wouldsignif icantly


participate

Wouldsomew hat


participate



participate

Wouldsignif icantly


participate


e.g. 15-20 minute games instead of 55 minute games - with possible provisions to reduce startup/shutdown effects

Shorter games to facilitate testing

02468

101214161820

Wouldsignif icantly


participate

Wouldsomew hat


participate



participate

Wouldsignif icantly


participate

Which of the following would increase/decrease the chances you participate

Significantly altered rules to “re-open” the competition

0

5

10

15

20

Wouldsignif icantly


participate

Wouldsomew hat


participate



participate

Wouldsignif icantly


participate


e.g. combination of short-term and long-term procurement contracts

Keep the game as is but introduce a second league with new challenges

05

1015

2025

Wouldsignif icantly


participate

Wouldsomew hat


participate



participate

Wouldsignif icantly


participate

Question 5

Please use this box to provide additional details on any of your answers under Question 4

Sample of Responses - I :

Improve agentware documentation

"Start-Kit" for new competitors Improved API if possible to assist agent modularity Donations and symbolic entry fees instead of 250$ More complicated factory problem

e.g. switch-over costs, multiple resources, machine breakdown perhaps correlated with high utilization

Double the game length to make it more realistic and to reduce start and end game effects

A more complex reputation management

Sample of Responses - II* :

Introduction of multiple leagues “Experimental" league with a new set of rules League with 2006 rules Undergraduate league League with "simpler" specifications

“The current supplier model encourages early component orders and discourages the use of negotiation strategies”

(*) This summary provides a “small portion”/highlights of all the comments. The full text is provided in another file.

Sample of Responses - III* :

Availability of game data should be delayed till after the tournament is over

More opportunities for learning Competition should be designed to test security aspects of

agents Finals with 12 agents Reduce predictability on the customer side Introduce a loan limit Products could have zero demand for several days at the

beginning or end of games – e.g. product launch and phase-out

Allow manufacturers to respond to consumer bids with offers for substitutable products (e.g. different CPUs, etc)

Question 6

Please briefly describe your main research interests and motivations for participating in TAC-SCM e.g. “adaptive techniques”, “optimization”, “Supply

Chain Management”, “game theoretic issues”, etc.

Please briefly describe your main research interests and motivations for participating

in TAC-SCM

First Research Interest Mentioned*

0 2 4 6 8 10

distributed systems.

Multi agent simulation

Online trading

resource allocation

Automated trading / Trading strategy

Intelligent Agents

Machine Learning

Agent Architecture / Agents implementation / MAS

Optimization

Game theory / Strategic analysis / Auction theory

Adaptive techniques

Supply Chain Management


(*) First topic listed – even though respondents were not instructed to list topics in any particular order

Research Interests (All 5 options)

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Applying economics to e-commerce

Architectures for decision-making

Automated trading

Competition challenge

Control theory

Decision making

distributed systems.

Dynamic modeling

High number of participants

Multi agent simulation

Multi-agent interaction

Multi-agent planning and learning

Online trading

Opponent modelling

Performance evaluation

Planning

Process synchronization

Reactiveness and proactiveness

Reasoning about uncertainty

Software engineering

Teaching tool in multi-agents grad class

Automated trading / Trading strategy

Intelligent Agents

Market design

Negotiation

resource allocation

Scheduling under uncertainty

Agent Architecture / Agents implementation / MAS

Machine Learning

Adaptive techniques

Optimization

Supply Chain Coordination

Game theory / Strategic analysis / Auction theory


Question 7

Do you use TAC-SCM software in courses that you teach?


0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Undergraduate course Graduate course

Nu

mb

er o

f R

esp

on

den

ts


Average Enrollment - Undergraduate course

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

1-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 21-30 31-50 51-100 >100

Number of students per year

Nu

mb

er

of

Re

sp

on

de

nts


Course offered since (Undergraduate)

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

2003 2004 2005 2006

Nu

mb

er o

f R

esp

on

den

ts


Average Enrollment - Graduate course

00.5

11.5

22.5

33.5

44.5

1-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 21-30 31-50 51-100 >100

Number of students per year

Nu

mb

er

of

Re

sp

on

de

nts


Course offered since (Graduate)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

2003 2004 2005 2006

Nu

mb

er o

f R

esp

on

den

ts

Question 8

Do you find the TAC-SCM Agent repository useful?

Do you find the TAC-SCM Agent repository useful?

0 10 20 30 40 50

Yes

No


Question 9

Do you have any suggestions for improving the research/educational value of the competition?

Samples Responses - I*

The competition doesn’t encourage opponent modeling The game does not provide detailed information about the

behavior of individual agents. Don’t release game logs but make more information reports

available to agents to somewhat compensate Moving TAC-SCM 2007 to July would increase participation We already make use of available data logs from previous

games. This has to continue. The rules of the game are too complex for students taking an

agent course to try to make their own agents. Perhaps, we could develop a lighter version that will pick the

students' interest enough to entice some of them to develop a full version agent.

Changes to the game rules will be needed to keep the research papers coming

(*) sample responses. The full text is provided in another file.

Samples Responses - II*

A more sophisticated game viewer will be very interesting for educational purposes.

I think having some support from industry is very important. Especially in credibility.

Making all the agents available after the competition It's difficult to justify dedicating significant resources to the SCM game when

you work for an organization that needs real impact and results. Increase the sharing of agent binaries, source code, analysis tools, agent

descriptions etc. The ideal specification should have both high variability and moderate

predictability. Long-term "strategic" decisions Games could last for 20 quarters (5 years), with each quarter taking 1 or 2

real minutes. A minor point about the current specification is that supplier prices have a

rather strange pattern, in that it is often possible to get components for cheaper in the very short term (2-3 days out) than in the mid term (6-10 days out).


Samples Responses - III*

Developing a GUI front-end to develop agents. This is critical for many Industrial Engineering students and Business School students that lack programming skills.

The possibility of market shocks (i.e. suppliers going out of business or customer demand collapsing in one market segment)


Question 10

Enter here any other comments you may have about TAC-SCM and how you would like the tournament to evolve over the years to come

Samples Responses - I*

I am imagining right now is an environment which houses lots of agents Having TAC run through late April was very unfortunate for my team Reduce the registration fee for the teams who lost in the previous year. It is

quite difficult for us to get the funding for next year if we did not do well in the finals.

Add a secondary market for components and finished goods. Allow agents to buy other agents.

Final rounds should include more games, more representative Attracting more participants could be done in 2 ways:

advertising this contest in the academic environment offering some cash prizes for the winners even if symbolic

The requirement to have exactly 6 agents in a game is a bit of a problem for tournament organization. Perhaps the number could be variable? Or perhaps the technique used this

year of having a "filler" agent is a reasonable compromise. Introduce mix of short-term and long-term contracts Introduce a one-day lag (or greater) before detailed game logs are

accessible to competitors

(*)The full text is provided in another file.

Documents

TAC SCM Survey Alberto Sardinha Norman Sadeh e-Supply Chain Management Lab Carnegie Mellon University