A reference system for internet based inter-enterprise electronic commerce

As supply chain management and its global outsourcing are widely spread recently, many researches and development focus on integration of inter-enterprise information systems. The most important factors to achieve inter-enterprise integration are standardization and digitalization. The objectives of this work are to develop the reference model for internet based inter-enterprise electronic commerce and to implement a prototype system for its fundamental issues such as business process, information standards, and information system integration. The electronics assembly processes are chosen as the target industry. For the reference architecture of inter-enterprise electronic commerce, we also investigate intra-enterprise business processes and model them with IDEF0. The standard documents and its items are defined from analysis of traditional documents for outsourcing processes and EDI documents. For standard exchange method, web-based XML is adopted, and corresponding DTD and XSL for RFQ and Quotation are developed. In order to prove feasibility and effectiveness of the reference system a prototype system is introduced and implemented. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.