Andy J. Figueroa (opens in a new tab), a researcher at CIGIP, has received the Best Paper Award in the Young Scientist category at PRO-VE 2026 (opens in a new tab), the 27th IFIP/SOCOLNET Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises, held in Padua (Italy) from 26 to 28 October. The award recognises the paper “Collaborative Agents for Production Negotiation in a Manufacturing-as-a-Service Environment”.
The paper, co-authored with Beatriz Andrés (opens in a new tab), Raúl Poler (opens in a new tab) and Paco Santacatalina, presents a multi-agent system that works alongside people in production negotiation processes in Manufacturing-as-a-Service environments. The agents support the negotiation, while people remain at the centre of decision-making, in line with the Industry 5.0 vision.
The research has been carried out within the MaaSAI and AIMAS projects, both focused on the use of artificial intelligence agents for decision-making in manufacturing. At this edition of the conference, CIGIP also organised a special session on agri-food networks.
MaaSAI is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme (GA 101177368). AIMAS (PID2025-168493OB-I00) is funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by ERDF, EU.