An open standard for the exchange of information in the Australian timber sector

The purpose of this paper is to describe business-to-business (B2B) communication and the characteristics of an open standard for electronic communication within the Australian timber and wood products industry. Current issues, future goals and strategies for using business-to-business communication will be considered. From the perspective of the Timber industry sector, this study is important because supply chain efficiency is a key component in an organisation's strategy to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Strong improvement in supply chain performance is possible with improved business-to-business communication which is used both for building trust and providing real time marketing data. Traditional methods such as electronic data interchange (EDI) used to facilitate B2B communication have a number of disadvantages, such as high implementation and running costs and a rigid and inflexible messaging standard. Information and communications technologies (ICT) have supported the emergence of web-based EDI which maintains the advantages of the traditional paradigm while negating the disadvantages. This has been further extended by the advent of the Semantic web which rests on the fundamental idea that web resources should be annotated with semantic markup that captures information about their meaning and facilitates meaningful machine-to-machine communication. This paper provides an ontology using OWL (Web Ontology Language) for the Australian Timber sector that can be used in conjunction with semantic web services to provide effective and cheap B2B communications

Using XML Vocabularies to Exploit Changing Business Models: The NewsML Experience

In 1998, Reuters committed resources to exploring the use of XML (Extensible Markup Language) as the foundation for their next-generation news content management system. This was in response to changes in the news industry business model resulting from changing value webs and content delivery methods. The result was ReutersNewsML, an XML vocabulary for wrapping news content items from multiple sources into a single package. In 1999 Reuters submitted the concept to the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC), which managed the development of the NewsML specification. NewsML was ratified as an IPTC standard for the entire global news media industry in 2000. This paper explores the development of NewsML as an illustration of how XML standards can be exploited within complex business webs

Complexity and Context: Emerging Forms of Collaborative Inter-Organizational Systems

The paper analyses the collaborative development of emergent IOS in three data intensive industry sectors (telecommunications, news media, and financial services). The findings reveal that environmental complexities (the complexity of data consumption patterns and increased interdependence within value webs) require context-sensitive value exchanges operationalised within co-operatively developed commodity-like IT infrastructures. The paper concludes by examining the implications of the study findings for developing IOS to support pooled, sequential, and reciprocal inter-organisational interdependencies

TRACKING AND TRACING PORTAL FOR PROJECT LOGISTICS. A Review on the Interconnectivity of EDI, ERP and Cloud-based Systems

Tracking and tracing is becoming an essential factor for the success of project logistics. The safety and on-time arrival of shipments has become the primary concerns for manufacturing companies. The paper has introduced an overall approach to track and trace their deliveries from the starting point to the end-customer. Detail implementation of the whole solution will not be presented, yet each component in the system will be analyzed and discussed. Electronic Data Exchange (EDI) has been around for the last 30 years and is known for providing logistics companies a fast, reliable way to exchange information electronically. EDI, together with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), are considered as one of the remarkable emerging technologies which play an important role in supply chain management tracking network. Although the implementation of EDI and ERP systems is not straight forward and not easy to established, many logistics companies are still seeing this as a vital factor which can help companies to establish a sustainable development, increase productivity and reduce costs. In this paper, the interconnectivity of EDI, ERP, and cloud-based systems in tracking and tracing portal will be analyzed in business perspective in order to define what benefits it could achieve for logistics and supply chain management tracking network. A case study of Logistics Tracking Network (LogTrack) project is presented and examined with the view to implement, evaluate and manage the interconnectivity of EDI, ERP, and cloud-based systems in a practical point of view. Information collected from this research project will be analyzed to provide a list of mapping attributes between these systems and used as a basic for the further development of tracking and tracing portal. The impacts and implications of such system for managing the business logistics are discussed and presented in conclusion.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Information sharing architecture using internet\u27s XML and SOAP

Businesses should be able to share information among each other irrespective of the platform, operating systems and programming languages. Using Internet as the Information Systems Architecture has many values. Internet is affordable, easily available and is not tied to any specific vendor. Internet is simple and runs under any kind of operating system. Information sharing across the Internet is challenging but rewarding. Data Transfer using the Internet requires structure and discipline. To integrate diverse group of systems we need specialized protocols that can connect different platforms that use different languages together. Extensible Markup Language enables the creation of application dependent vocabulary which can be used to store data and information in a structured fashion. Simple Object Access Protocol can be used to carry information electronically from one end to the other. Simple Object Access Protocol uses the World Wide Web\u27s extensible Markup Language in encoding the message contents and its Hypertext Transport Protocol in carrying the message packet. This thesis work is focused upon sharing of information among enterprises using extensible Markup Language, Simple Object Access Protocol and decentralized database systems. An online Shopping cart application has been implemented using the notion of XML and SOAP. SOAP is used as a protocol to share information between AsiStore and its business partners Store 1 and Store2. XML have been used as a part of the application to drive the shopping cart, which users can view on the web browser

Application of a new service-oriented architecture (SOA) paradigm on the design of a crisis management distributed system

The complexity and the intensity of crisis-related situations require the use of advanced distributed systems infrastructures. In order to develop such infrastructures, specific architectures need to be applied such as Component-based Modelling, Object-Oriented, Aspect-Oriented and Service-Oriented Design. This paper focuses on the use of Service-Oriented Design techniques for the development of the ATHENA Crisis Management Distributed System. The function of the ATHENA Crisis Management Distributed System is based on the use of data generated by social media for the evaluation of the severity of the conditions of a crisis and the coordination of the appropriate measures in response to the crisis. The paper presents a new definition for Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and specifies the benefits that are generated by the use of this new definition in the development of the ATHENA system. Useful conclusions are also drawn in relation to how the definition considers the different technical backgrounds of users

Uncertainty and Enterprise Integration - A Real Options View

Enterprise integration (EI) involves integrating business processes and data across organizations, systems, and applications and is a key spending priority for CIOs according to the consulting firm Gartner. Enterprise integration however represents an investment scenario fraught with a good deal of uncertainty on account of rapidly changing markets, technologies, and standards. EI represents a rich and dynamic market with ever-shifting boundaries, complex XML-based technology stacks, and a proliferation of standards. Complex and uncertain investment scenarios are best approached from the increasingly important real options (RO) valuation methodology. This paper develops a taxonomy of use cases of enterprise integration, assesses the uncertainty inherent in these use cases, and then develops decision-making heuristics based on the RO notion of Strategic Net Present Value (SNPV) for approaching investment decisions in EI

IDL-XML based information sharing model for enterprise integration

CJM is a mechanized approach to problem solving in an enterprise. Its basis is intercommunication between information systems, in order to provide faster and more effective decision making process. These results help minimize human error, improve overall productivity and guarantee customer satisfaction. Most enterprises or corporations started implementing integration by adopting automated solutions in a particular process, department, or area, in isolation from the rest of the physical or intelligent process resulting in the incapability for systems and equipment to share information with each other and with other computer systems. The goal in a manufacturing environment is to have a set of systems that will interact seamlessly with each other within a heterogeneous object framework overcoming the many barriers (language, platforms, and even physical location) that do not grant information sharing. This study identifies the data needs of several information systems of a corporation and proposes a conceptual model to improve the information sharing process and thus Computer Integrated Manufacturing. The architecture proposed in this work provides a methodology for data storage, data retrieval, and data processing in order to provide integration at the enterprise level. There are four layers of interaction in the proposed IXA architecture. The name TXA (DDL - XML Architecture for Enterprise Integration) is derived from the standards and technologies used to define the layers and corresponding functions of each layer. The first layer addresses the systems and applications responsible for data manipulation. The second layer provides the interface definitions to facilitate the interaction between the applications on the first layer. The third layer is where data would be structured using XML to be stored and the fourth layer is a central repository and its database management system