The need for supply chain integration (SCI) methodologies has been increasing as a consequence of the globalization of production and sales, and the advancement of enabling information technologies. In this paper, we describe our experience with implementing and modeling SCIs. We present the integration architecture and the software components of our prototype implementation. We then discuss a variety of information sharing methodologies. Then, within the framework of a multi-echelon supply chain process model spanning multiple organizations, we summarize research on the benefits of intraorganizational knowledge sharing, and we discuss performance scalability.
Michael O. Ball, Meng Ma, Louiqa Raschid, Zhengyin