The architecture of smart catalogs and virtual catalogs is an application of the facilitator architecture long in use in Logic Group of Stanford University's Computer Science Dept. The facilitator architecture has been demonstrated in the domains of software interoperability and concurrent engineering. Several smart catalogs have been built in collaboration with several companies in the domains of workstations, test and measurement equipment, and semiconductors. We are extending this work by creating a collection of smart catalogs for several manufacturers, a virtual catalog for a retailer, and a domain ontology for a trade association. We have described an architecture for electronic catalogs for multiple companies that interoperate.
Companies create smart catalogs of searchable, machine-sensible product information.
Retailers and distributors create virtual catalogs that provide customers with product information dynamically requested from manufacturers' smart catalogs. Virtual catalogs provide a new degree of interaction between manufacturers and retailers or distributors. Virtual catalogs enable new business relations and new business models. This paper has benefited from feedback of numerous people who have heard presentations of this paper, read earlier drafts, or participated in discussions. In particular, Michael Genesereth designed the overall agent communication architecture used by smart catalogs and virtual catalogs, Narinder Singh designed the facilitator used here, and Mustafa Syed programmed some of the other components in our initial prototypes.