Simulation of Halal Food Supply Chain with Certification System: A Multi-Agent System Approach

Transcription

1 Simulation of Halal Food Supply Chain with Certification System: A Multi-Agent System Approach YiHua Lam and Saadat M. Alhashmi School of Information Technology, Sunway Campus, Monash University, Bandar Sunway, 46150, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia {Lam.yek.Wah,Saadat.M.Alhashmi}@infotech.monash.edu.my Abstract. Certification of Halal food product supply becomes a challenging task as various validating procedures have to be undergone under the emergence of vast business networks in food supply chain. In order to maintain high quality assurance of every validating procedure, and to fulfill demand from immense religious population, highly efficient method will be needed to monitor, to record and to register, to decide and to certify every actor (agent) and every product in the supply chain. With the multi-agent architecture this research work simulates the Halal food supply chain planning with certification system, which attempts to replicate the actual market place coupled with Halal food quality requirement. Statistical study of the decision making of various agents in the supply chain and the response of certification system will verify the feasibility of the certification framework in supply chain. Keywords: Multi-agent, Halal food, supply chain, certification process. 1 Introduction Post-modern view of food quality is emerging from the factors of culture, environmental and ethical values, biological values, sensual and nutritional values, functional values and authenticity [1, 2, 3]. However, the understanding of specifically imposed values in food quality is not new in Islamic culture. Food permitted by Islamic dietary law is called as Halal food (permitted food). Products certified as Halal are products that not only abide by the religion aspect but include hygiene, sanitation and safety qualities [4] which are important quality aspects of food. The consumers of Halal products include Muslims and non-muslims that hail from many countries such as Asian countries, Middle East countries, America, Canada, United Kingdom, Africa and Europe. As quality is associated with the Halal standard, it is of utmost importance that the products and meat sold are genuinely Halal, but many times it has been found that this is not the case in many countries [5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]. For instance, manufacturers and distribution outlets such as food sellers are using fake Halal certificates or labels on products and meat [8, 10, 11] there is cross contamination in the production of Halal and non-halal food at the manufacturers [7, 9, 13], animals are not slaughtered ritually [7, 13], there is clumsy slaughtering of animals with dull knives [12] which is not only cruel but is considered not Halal under the MS1500:2004 standard [11] which adheres to the Shariah law (Islamic law) and has T.D. Bui, T.V. Ho, and Q.T. Ha (Eds.): PRIMA 2008, LNAI 5357, pp , Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2008

2 260 Y. Lam and S.M. Alhashmi been accepted by the United Nations, and animals are starved before the slaughtering according to slaughterhouse officials [14] as well as cruelly transported by traders such as from the supplier to the abattoir [12, 14] which is cruel and therefore not Halal as quoted by the late B.A. Hafiz al-masri, Imam of the Shah Jehan Mosque in the United Kingdom [12] who has contributed that animals subjected to cruelties in their breeding, transport, slaughter, or in general welfare, meat from them is considered impure, in other words not Halal. This has caused the consumers of Halal products especially the Muslim consumers to be concerned about the quality of the Halal food and products that they consume and use on a daily basis. Today authorized Muslim certification organizations have been set up in many countries to monitor and to inspect the abattoirs, manufacturers and distribution outlets in their handling of the animals and Halal products, and to issue the Halal certificates to them once the inspections are approved. These certification organizations have been successful to a certain extent in reducing the quality problem associated with the Halal products, but there is room for improvement. Currently, these organizations are carrying out their inspections manually and there are certification organizations that require companies to manually submit the Halal application to their offices and liaise with third party organizations/labs to test the Halal products, which delay the Halal certification process and ultimately delay the genuine Halal products from reaching the consumers hands quickly. Procedural delays can cause all sorts of issues not just with consumers but along the supply chain as well. This paper proposes a multi-agent based approach to improve the Halal supply chain in general and the certification process in particular. With the advancement of Multi-Agent System (MAS), we can verify and study the proposed Halal certification system framework by constructing a multi-agent environment on Repast [15] platform to replicate the real market space coexisting with authorized Muslim certification organization. In addition, this paper statistically presents the feasibility of a tested Halal certification framework to counter the procedural hindrances in certifying Halal products in food supply chain. A "pseudosynchronous" method, which manipulates the shuffling technique, is implemented to imitate the concurrent decision-making process of every participating agent. This decision-making could be in the form of information retrieval, finding the best deal from various offered bids, procuring livestock supply and registering Halal food data. In our view, a multi autonomous agent environment must possess the autonomy and intelligence in decision-making. Hence, based on previous occurrences, current situation and its own interest, every agent has control over its internal state and actions. An autonomous agent, which possesses intelligent behavior, will execute the assigned tasks on its own for the achievement of predefined goals. Therefore, actions will be different among agents, which may be either the same type agent or different type agent. This individual decision maker will complicate the simulated food supply chain with Halal certification system. Moreover, technology can be great enabler especially when it comes to routine food quality inspection. By considering such advancement this paper puts forward a multi-agent based simulated framework for testing the Halal certification system in food supply chain.

3 $ $ Simulation of Halal Food Supply Chain with Certification System 261 Fig. 1. Multi-agent environment overview 2 The Simulated Halal Food Supply with Certification System Model Space Our focus is on replicating the basic real world problem by mapping it onto MAS simulation. The simulated Halal food supply chain with Halal certification system will demonstrate (1) complex interaction of various agents in Halal food supply chain, the reactions of agents with Certification Organization Agent (Cert. Org. Agent) and food business network; (2) feasibility of the certification information flow (3) statistical studies of certification efficiency; and (4) pseudo-synchronous interactions among multiple actors that require independent decision-making capability. Every agent is capable to "concurrently" make decisions at run time. Thus, the simulated Halal food supply with certification system will have to be pseudo-synchronous by using shuffling method with randomly selected sequence. By using shuffling technique, the sequence of interaction, Supplier/Breeder Agent Abattoir Agent Manufacturer Agent Distribution Outlet can be shuffled according to random number. That means the sequence can be led by either a Supplier/Breeder Agent, or an Abattoir Agent, or a Manufacturer Agent, or a Distribution Outlet in every time step of Repast. However, Cert. Org. Agent cannot lead any sequence.

4 262 Y. Lam and S.M. Alhashmi Every agent is able to perform independent actions on behalf of its own, and work out how to achieve its design objectives, autonomously and dynamically, because every agent is dealing with current situation and individual data. Every agent in the Halal supply chain system replicates basic functions of the real world. The different actors that have been identified in this framework are categorized in two groups, i.e. the group of Supply Chain Organizations, which includes Supplier Agent or Breeder Agent, Abattoir Agent, Manufacturer Agent and Distribution Outlets; and the group of Cert. Org. Agent (and System Registry). Every agent will autonomously perform in this system. For instance, the Abattoir Agent replicates the basic action of butcher. It will procure livestock from Supplier/Breeder Agents, who supply/breed the livestock, select, slaughter and sell them to Manufacturer Agents or Distribution Outlets. Each Representative (interface) of Cert. Org. Agent residing in Abattoir Agents will select/justify Halal and non-halal livestock before they will be slaughtered by Abattoir Agent. The selected and slaughtered livestock will be labeled as Halal by the Representative as well. Once the slaughtered Halal livestock is sent to buyer, Abattoir Agent will submit slaughtered Halal livestock data to Cert. Org. Agent. An Abattoir Agent may sell slaughtered Halal livestock to a Manufacturer Agent or a Distribution Outlet. If a Manufacturer Agent purchases the slaughtered Halal livestock from an Abattoir Agent, it processes and butchers the slaughtered Halal livestock into pieces of meat. Again, a Representative of Cert. Org. Agent residing in that Manufacturer Agent will label every processed meat before it will be sold to a Distribution Outlet which may be a Food Retailer, or a Butcher or a Hypermarket. Information of processed Halal meat from Manufacturer Agent will be sent to Cert. Org. Agent as well via a Representative. As basically, there are three types of Distribution Outlet, hence different type of Distribution Outlet will have different rate of selling Halal food. For instance, Food Retailer will have higher rate to sell processed Halal meat compared to Butcher, whereas Butcher will have higher rate to sell slaughtered Halal livestock compared to Food Retailer. However, Hypermarket will have an almost balanced Halal food selling rate. The flow of financial point (money) is from Distribution Outlet to Supplier Agent via Manufacturer Agent and Abattoir Agent. That means Distribution Outlet will sell Halal food and generate money. When a Distribution Outlet purchases processed Halal meat from a Manufacturer Agent or buys slaughtered Halal livestock from an Abattoir Agent, it will pass money to either one of them. Money will flow from Manufacturer Agent to Abattoir Agent when trading occurs. Finally, Supplier Agent will accumulate money from Abattoir Agents and use money to generate livestock. Contrary, the flow of livestock is from Supplier Agent to Distribution Outlet. Furthermore, two types of Halal food data, i.e. slaughtered Halal livestock and processed Halal meat, will be kept in Cert. Org. Agent database. The slaughtered Halal livestock data kept in Cert. Org. Agent will only be cleared if the slaughtered Halal livestock has been processed by Manufacturer Agents or it has been sold at Distribution Outlets. The processed Halal meat data will only be cleared from Cert. Org. Agent database if it has been sold at Distribution Outlet. In addition, the simulated livestock market involves Supplier/Breeder Agents and Abattoir Agents. That means, after breeding livestock, the Supplier Agent not only trade livestock with Abattoir Agent, but it may also trade with other Supplier Agents as well. The higher the offered bid given by an agent, the higher the probability an

5 Simulation of Halal Food Supply Chain with Certification System 263 agent will get the livestock. The same business network will happen when an Abattoir Agent opens its sale to Manufacturer Agents and Distribution Outlets. Moreover, every agent will tend to sustain its lifespan by continuously purchasing and selling to generate more money. It will become idle when it has low amount of money, and it will be erased from the Halal food supply chain model space when its life is expired. Agents will tend to lift up the offer to outbid other agents in order to succeed in food market. The objective of constructing such trading is to complicate the food supply business network. Therefore, every agent will be lively to trade around in the Halal food market. Furthermore, once an agent is added to the Halal food supply chain, it will receive a certain period of permit (e.g. 50 time step) from Cert. Org. Agent. Random examination of Halal food will be carried out by Cert. Org. Agent. 3 Results The model space of Halal food supply chain with Certification System Agent is depicted in Fig. 2. Every symbol is labeled and numbered accordingly with the type of agent and an index number. Fig. 2. Distribution of livestock received by Abattoir Agent 0 from Supplier Agent 1 Fig. 3. Distribution of Halal livestock received by Abattoir Agent 0 from Supplier Agent 1 Fig. 2 shows interactions happen among the same type agents (Supplier Agent interacts with Supplier Agent) and different type agents (e.g. Abattoir Agent interacts with Manufacturer Agent or Distribution Outlet and Cert. Org. Agent) within one time step. Such interactions occur randomly and strategically under autonomous decision-making process of agents with probabilistic consideration as described in

6 264 Y. Lam and S.M. Alhashmi section 2. Red links represent trading interaction; whereas blue and cyan links depict passing/sending of slaughtered Halal livestock information and processed Halal meat information to Cert. Org. Agent; in addition, orange links portray clearings of Halal food data at Certification Organization database which are requested by Distribution Outlets. Besides, Fig. 2 shows various types of agent lively participate in the Halal food supply business network within one time step. This complication of network replicates the basic actual Halal food supply chainfig. 3 shows a livestock distribution delivered by Supplier Agent to Abattoir Agent in one time step. In this paper, weight of livestock is assumed and used as the deciding factor to justify whether the livestock is Halal or non Halal. The distribution is recorded by Abattoir Agent once it has received livestock supply from Supplier Agent. After receiving livestock, Abattoir Agent assumes the Halal requirement of livestock weight is above or is the same as 1.5 weight unit. Obviously, Fig. 3 shows the livestock recorded by Abattoir Agent is in accord with Gaussian distribution and the distribution reproduces what has been generated by Supplier Agent with standard deviation 0.5, mean value 2.0 Fig. 4 significantly shows the selected livestock distribution at Abattoir Agent is above 1.5 weight unit. Fig. 4. Halal food supply chain with Certification System Agent 4 Conclusion and Discussion As stated in the introduction, the vast religious population of Islamic culture, who impose high requirement on food, demands the need to have a high efficiency and fast network base food certification system. However, before the real implementation of network base food certification system, Halal food supply chain planning with Certification System can be tested in a MAS environment. For instance, the color links of transferring Halal data in Fig. 2 may represent connections of e-business (ebxml) [16, 17] or RosettaNet [18]. The system, from a system-design perspective, shows evidence of a flexible design. What this means is that it possesses the elements of scaling up, functioning in a distributed environment, and above all, autonomy. This puts forward a framework where multi-agents can replicate the basic actual environment

7 Simulation of Halal Food Supply Chain with Certification System 265 and test the feasibility of a certification system on top of a food supply chain. The MAS model space has tested with five types of agent. Definitely, a larger number of agents either the same type or different type or combination of various types (e.g. contemporary hypermarket which consists of food retailer and abattoir) will probably increase the similarity with actual environment and reliability of the simulation, meanwhile augment the complexity of the virtual food business network. On the other hand, having a fewer number of agents will probably not bring out the advantages of a multi-agent approach, and the system could end up not achieving the main purpose as it was intended to. The focus of this MAS system development was on designing a generic and robust system. In the real world, the actual process of implementation depends on external variables such as market trend, behavioral, ethical, economical and social factors. However, this MAS system only considered the technical aspects, and at least this would pave the way by providing a framework where the above mentioned variables can be considered and explored for testing the real world application. This research will be undertaken to improve decision-making in certifying food supply under behavioral economic consideration and consumer trend. Evaluation in the real world also depends on other external factors such as: legislation, economic constraints, social and ethical aspects, for example. Nevertheless, the developed system will provide a framework in which these issues and problems of Halal food supply chain with certification system can be identified and articulated more easily. References 1. Eastham, J.F., Sharples, L., Ball, S.D.: Food Supply Chain Management: Issues for the Hospitality and Retail Sectors, Butterworth-Heinemann, p. 22 (2001) 2. Woodward, L., Stolton, S., Dudley, N. (eds.): Food Quality: Concepts and Methodologies. In: Proc. Colloquium Elm Farm Research Center, Newbury, UK (1989) 3. Woodward, L., Meier-Ploeger, A.: Consumer Perceptions of Organic Food Quality. In: IFOAM Conf., Mal Del Plata, Argentina (1998) 4. SIRIM, 5. American Communications Foundation, 6. Halal Journal, article_1036.php 7. Halal Monitoring Authority, 8. Halal Monitoring Committee, 9. Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America, Islamic Religious Council Singapore, warita/warita3-2000/page22.html 11. JAKIM, PETA, Halal Monitoring Committee,

8 266 Y. Lam and S.M. Alhashmi 14. People of the Ethical Treatment of Animals, dreport2.html 15. North, M.J., Collier, N.T., Vos, J.R.: Experiences Creating Three Implementations of the Repast Agent Modeling Toolkit. ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation 16(1), 1 25 (2006) 16. ebxml (2001a), ebxml (2001b), Rosetta Net,