# An Intelligent System to Ensure Interoperability for the Dairy Farm Business Model
## 2 Motivating Scenario  
Small and medium-sized DFs have to collaborate in supplying significant quantities of dairy products. Consequently, a small/medium-sized DF can strengthen its position in the marketplace by winning and honouring challenging contracts.  
Let us consider a medium-sized \(DF^{M}\) that got a contract to supply daily a considerable quantity of yoghurt to 100 schools from the north-west region of Romania. To fulfill the contract, \(DF^{M}\) has to outsource the work to local small-sized DFs (i.e., partners). To this end, \(DF^{M}\) may find and negotiate with reliable partners in a traditional manner. For example, \(DF^{M}\) has to look for partners and to gather data from catalogues and/or records of past deals; to select only the suitable ones based on, e.g., the employed feed or the type of milk; and to negotiate asynchronously with each partner. Table 1 shows some example DF data; we considered six DFs, where each DF was described with three key characteristics: the type of food used to feed animals (i.e., natural forage and growth stimulant), the type of milk (i.e., pasteurised and unpasteurised), and the DF's surroundings (i.e., forests and industrial areas). However, by following the traditional manner, \(DF^{M}\) has to deal with various time-consuming tasks, and, regardless, there is a lack of a global view of the negotiation process. As a result, \(DF^{M}\) is overwhelmed by the outsourcing part and can make hasty decisions.  
To avoid the pitfalls of the traditional manner, small and medium-sized DFs can automate the outsourcing part by using the negotiation system presented in [18; 19]. For instance, this collaborative system assists \(DF^{M}\) throughout the negotiation by providing a comprehensive view of all negotiations and facilitating simultaneous bilateral negotiations. In addition, the proposed collaborative negotiation system provides support for ensuring interoperability among multiple partners negotiating on a task described by multiple attributes.  
Therefore, in the negotiation scenario, one can employ the DF ontology illustrated in Figure 1. For instance, \(DF^{M}\) requests the price of ovine dairy products, and the partners return the price of goat and/or sheep dairy products according to the presented ontology. Additionally, we propose an automated lattice-based component for picking partners; and we define a satisfaction degree for each partner to be able to choose among similar proposals.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline \hline
**Dairy Farm ID** & **Animal Food** & **Type of Milk** & **Surroundings** \\ \hline DF1 & Natural forage & Pasteurised & Forests and Industrial areas \\ \hline DF2 & Natural forage and Growth stimulant & Pasteurised & Forests \\ \hline DF3 & Growth stimulant & Unpasteurised & Industrial areas \\ \hline DF4 & Natural forage & Pasteurised and Unpasteurised & Forests \\ \hline DF5 & Growth stimulant & Unpasteurised & Industrial areas \\ \hline DF6 & Natural forage & Pasteurised and Unpasteurised & Forests and Industrial areas \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 1: Example DF data.