Sharing is caring: data sharing in multi-agent supply chains

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Wang, Wan, Wang, Haiyan, Sobey, Adam
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Wang, Wan
Wang, Haiyan
Sobey, Adam
author_facet Wang, Wan
Wang, Haiyan
Sobey, Adam
contents Modern supply networks are complex interconnected systems. Multi-agent models are increasingly explored to optimise their performance. Most research assumes agents will have full observability of the system by having a single policy represent the agents, which seems unrealistic as this requires companies to share their data. The alternative is to develop a Hidden-Markov Process with separate policies, making the problem challenging to solve. In this paper, we propose a multi-agent system where the factory agent can share information downstream, increasing the observability of the environment. It can choose to share no information, lie, tell the truth or combine these in a mixed strategy. The results show that data sharing can boost the performance, especially when combined with a cooperative reward shaping. In the high demand scenario there is limited ability to change the strategy and therefore no data sharing approach benefits both agents. However, lying benefits the factory enough for an overall system improvement, although only by a relatively small amount compared to the overall reward. In the low demand scenario, the most successful data sharing is telling the truth which benefits all actors significantly.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_24074
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Sharing is caring: data sharing in multi-agent supply chains
Wang, Wan
Wang, Haiyan
Sobey, Adam
Multiagent Systems
Modern supply networks are complex interconnected systems. Multi-agent models are increasingly explored to optimise their performance. Most research assumes agents will have full observability of the system by having a single policy represent the agents, which seems unrealistic as this requires companies to share their data. The alternative is to develop a Hidden-Markov Process with separate policies, making the problem challenging to solve. In this paper, we propose a multi-agent system where the factory agent can share information downstream, increasing the observability of the environment. It can choose to share no information, lie, tell the truth or combine these in a mixed strategy. The results show that data sharing can boost the performance, especially when combined with a cooperative reward shaping. In the high demand scenario there is limited ability to change the strategy and therefore no data sharing approach benefits both agents. However, lying benefits the factory enough for an overall system improvement, although only by a relatively small amount compared to the overall reward. In the low demand scenario, the most successful data sharing is telling the truth which benefits all actors significantly.
title Sharing is caring: data sharing in multi-agent supply chains
topic Multiagent Systems
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.24074