Not to secret agents

While we have something of a phobia when it comes to information technology, partly on the grounds that too many people automatically think IT at any mention of the T word, some computing tricks will have a genuine impact on how business operates, and much more so than many of the overhyped toys you read about. One of the more revolutionary techniques could be agent computing.

We haven't written about this much because it takes some understanding. Now we can point people at a helpful brief introduction written by Michael Luck, an academic expert in the subject. Professor Luck is a part of the all powerful team of people in the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the University of Southampton.

Professor Luck writes that the potential of agent technologies "to impact on the life and work of all of us makes them one of the most dynamic developments in computer science today". Never mind the horrid but all too common abuse of the language, he means affect the life and work of all of us, you get the point.

As he puts it "One of the basic ideas of agent-based computing is that there are multiple agents in the environment which talk to each other. This is about interconnection, and brings together lots of very exciting techniques and technologies."

You can get an idea of the fundamental concept behind this technology from this bit: "Essentially autonomous software systems that can decide for themselves what they need to do, agents are capable of operating in dynamic and open environments and often interact with other agents Â? including both people and software."

So what you get is a bit of software that knows what you want to achieve without having to constantly refer back to you for more guidance.

Professor Luck quotes a couple of examples of agent technology in action. "DaimlerChrysler, for example, implemented an agent-based system on one factory floor to allow individual workpieces to be directed dynamically around the production area. The intention was to implement flexible manufacturing to meet rapidly changing operations targets. The result was a 20 per cent increase in productivity."

In another example, a Dutch company, Acklin, developed an agent-based system for international vehicle insurance claims. It reduced the total time of identification of client and claim from an average of six months to two minutes.