Patent ID: 8577747

Claim:
A method for use in acquiring parts from one or more suppliers, said method comprising: receiving, by an auctioneer agent executed by a computing system, auction information including a requested part and a plurality of decision criteria from an ordering manager agent of a plurality of ordering manager agents and from a plurality of supplier agents associated with a plurality of suppliers of the requested part; creating, by the auctioneer agent, a criteria comparison matrix representing a relative importance of each decision criterion; creating, by the auctioneer agent, a criteria importance vector based on the criteria comparison matrix; creating, by the auctioneer agent, a supplier comparison matrix corresponding to each decision criterion, wherein the supplier comparison matrix represents a relative ranking of each supplier of the plurality of suppliers with respect to the corresponding decision criterion; creating, by the auctioneer agent, a supplier criteria ranking vector corresponding to each decision criterion based on the supplier comparison matrix that corresponds to the decision criterion; combining, by the auctioneer agent, the supplier criteria ranking vectors and the criteria importance vector to create a supplier score matrix associated with the ordering manager agent, the supplier score matrix indicating a score associated with each supplier, wherein the requested part is ordered from one or more suppliers based on the supplier score matrix; selecting, by the auctioneer agent, a supplier based on the supplier score matrix; creating, by the auctioneer agent, an ordering manager score matrix associated with the selected supplier, the ordering manager score matrix indicating a score associated with each ordering manager agent of the plurality of ordering manager agents; and calculating, by the auctioneer agent, a trade price associated with the requested part based at least in part on a bidding price from the ordering manager agent, an asking price from the selected supplier, and the score associated with the selected supplier, and the score associated with the ordering manager agent.