Towards Integrated Document Management in Networked Product Development

Product development (PD) in a network of collaborative companies is different from the traditional way of doing PD within single organization. Parallel way of doing PD increases the need for synchronization of PD activities, but the flow of design information in the company network is difficult to manage. There are indications that the automation of document management should improve the performance of networked PD projects. However, the dynamic nature of networked PD is an obstacle for this, as it requires such flexibility and speed from the setup and further maintenance of integrated document management that is currently unavailable. This article is a work-in-progress publication about research that seeks ways to reduce the setup time of integrated document management for a network of companies that collaborate on PD. This article reviews literature to create the basis for developing solutions to solve this problem, presents our suggestions, and define the following research steps in the road towards integrated document management in networked PD

A multi-agent simulation framework for automated negotiation in order promising

The purpose of this paper is to propose and test a multi-agent-based system for automated multi-attribute negotiation in order promising. In a make-to-order production model, it is not always possible to satisfy the Available-to-Promise (ATP) and Capable-to-Promise (CTP) conditions. Therefore, it is important to quickly explore alternate solutions that would satisfy both the customer and the supplier. We adopt the concepts of evolutionary system design that advocates for continuous exploration of new solutions based on extensive search and multi-attribute simulations that help identify for better negotiated solutions based on real-life ordering situations – changes of delivery date, price adjustments, addition/modifications of valueadded services as part of the order. Results of our simulations showed that negotiation procedures did reduce the number of rejected orders and increase the overall revenue when negotiation concepts are introduced

Accounting for collaborative supply chain relationships : issues and strategies

The purpose of this discussion paper is to explore the contemporary business model that has arisen with the advent of B2B e-commerce systems in order to better understand the improvements needed in the financial reporting model. The contemporary business model has relegated the enterprise-centric view of corporate competition and the current financial reporting model to insignificance in many instances. Rather, today’s business environment is one dominated by competition between supply chains with an organization’s success ultimately hinging on the viability and success of its supply chain partners as much as, or more than, enterprise-centric policies and decisions. As a result, these highly integrative systems connect supply chain partners in a manner that is more tightly coupled than most consolidated entities. Still, the current financial reporting model fails to even minimally capture the complexity of this new reality. This discussion paper provides the foundation for elaborating on a detailed discussion of how this business model could be more accurately captured through an enhanced business reporting model.El objetivo de este documento de debate es explorar el modelo contemporáneo de negocios que ha surgido con la llegada del B2B – una situación en la que un negocio le hace una transferencia comercial a otro – a los sistemas de comercio electrónico, para así comprender mejor las mejoras necesarias en el modelo de información financiera. El modelo contemporáneo de negocios ha relegado la perspectiva de la empresa como centro de la competencia corporativa, y el actual modelo de información financiera a la insignificancia en ciertos momentos. Sin embargo, el entorno empresarial actual está dominado por la competición entre las cadenas de suministro con el éxito de una organización dependiendo de la viabilidad y el éxito de sus socios de dichas cadenas, tanto, o incluso más que, en las políticas y decisiones centradas en la empresa. Como resultado de ello, estos sistemas altamente integrantes conectan a sus socios de esas cadenas de manera que está más acoplada que la mayoría de las entidades consolidadas. Aún así, el modelo actual de información financiera falla en mínimamente capturar la complejidad de esta nueva realidad. Este documento proporciona la base para elaborar un debate detallado sobre cómo este modelo empresarial podría ser capturado de una forma más exacta, a través de un modelo de información empresarial mejorado

Managing Information System Integration Technologies--A Study of Text Mined Industry White Papers

Industry white papers are increasingly being used to explain the philosophy and operation of a product in marketplace or technology context. This explanation is used by senior managers for strategic planning in an organization. This research explores the effectiveness of white papers and strategies for managers to learn about technologies using white papers. The research is conducted by collecting industry white papers in the area of Information System Integration and gleaned relevant information through text-mining tool, Vantage Point. The text mined information is analyzed to provide solutions for practical problems in systems integration market. The indirect findings of the research are New System Integration Business Models, Methods for Calculating ROI of System Integration Project, and Managing Implementation Failures

Implementation of an Electronic Invoice Solution using the BizTalk Service Oriented Architecture

ABSTRACT The recent globalization of markets, technology and competition has increased business' needs in terms of flexibility, quality, cost-effectiveness and timeliness. Information technology (IT) has played an important role in this field as a way of answering to these requirements. With the increased use of the Internet, electronic business is one area of IT that has been dramatically affected in the past decade, and so, electronic commerce has transformed and became one of the most important forces shaping business today. Several requirements affect and condition the development of an electronic invoice solution. From B2B necessities, through legislation and contemplating a specific technological scenario, this dissertation aims to automate the invoicing process between two companies using BizTalk Server platform to provide the means to answer this business process' requirements and afford further improvements in terms of supported formats and integration with other business support systems

E-business framework enabled B2B integration

Standards for B2B integration help to facilitate the interoperability between organisations. These standards, often called e-business frameworks, guide integration by specifying the details for business processes, business documents and secure messaging. Extensible Mark-up Language (XML) is used in modern e-business frameworks instead of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) formats. Having XML as the data format is not enough for integration, but e-business frameworks are needed to guide how XML is used. This work analyses the many partly competing and overlapping e-business frameworks how they differ in support for business processes, documents and secure messaging. In addition, the effect of standardisation organisation to the outcome of the e-business framework is studied. In this work, one e-business framework, RosettaNet, is used to tackle the challenges of product development (PD) integrations. A proof-of-concept implementation of a RosettaNet integration is provided to support PD and the lessons learned are discussed. The current specifications lack good processes for PD integrations, while they fail in specifying the concepts needed for document management. Furthermore, there are interoperability problems due to a lack of expressivity of the schema languages to encode the business documents, and the current setup of integration takes a very long time. RosettaNet has a lot of flexibility in the specifications, and thus just supporting the same standard process is not enough for interoperability. With semantic technologies, many shortcomings of the current standards for B2B integration can be solved, as they make it possible to present constraints the current technologies have problems with. This work presents a practical case of B2B integration with semantic technologies and describes the benefits of applying such technologies.Standardit tukevat organisaatioiden välistä järjestelmäintegraatiota. Integroinnin standardit määrittelevät organisaatioiden välisiä liiketoimintaprosesseja, -dokumentteja sekä määrittelevät turvallisen tavan kommunikoida. Nykyaikaiset standardit ovat XML-perusteisia vanhemman EDI-formaatin sijaan. XML:n käyttö ei ole riittävästi takaamaan integraation onnistumista, vaan tarvitaan tarkempaa sopimista, miten XML:ää käytetään integraatiossa. Joukko yritystenvälisen integroinnin standardeja määrittelee tämän. Tässä työssä analysoidaan useaa, osittain kilpailevaa, yritystenvälisen integroinnin standardia ja tutkitaan miten ne tukevat liiketoimintaprosessien, -dokumenttien ja turvallisen viestinvälityksen määrittelyjä ottaen huomioon myös standardointiorganisaation vaikutuksen lopputulokseen. Tässä työssä RosettaNet-standardia sovelletaan tuotekehitykseen liittyvissä integroinneissa. Työssä esitetään prototyyppi tuotekehitystiedon integroinnista RosettaNetin avulla ja keskustellaan saavutetuista kokemuksista. Nykyiset spesifikaatiot tuotekehitysprosesseille ovat tarpeisiin riittämättömiä, koska tuki dokumenttien hallinnan käsitteistölle on puutteellinen. Myös RosettaNetin käyttämien XML-skeemakielien puutteellinen ilmaisuvoima aiheuttaa ongelmia dokumenttien yhteentoimivuudelle. Lisäksi integraation tekeminen on hidasta verrattuna tyypillisen tuotekehitysprojektin kestoon. RosettaNetin tarjoamissa spesifikaatioissa on paljon joustavuutta, joten saman standardiprosessin tukeminen ei tarkoita, että järjestelmät ovat yhteentoimivia. Nykyspesifikaatioissa ja niissä käytettyjen skeema-kielten ilmaisuvoiman puutteet voidaan osittain paikata käyttämällä semanttisia teknologioita. Tämä työ esittää, miten integraatioissa voidaan saavuttaa semanttisia teknologioita käyttämällä parempi yhteentoimivuus.reviewe

G-DEF: Protocolo criptográfico para geração de documento eletrônico fiscal nas operações entre empresas

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciência da Computação.Esta dissertação discute o comércio eletrônico entre empresas e o controle do Estado sobre os impostos incidentes sobre o valor adicionado, gerados por este comércio. O trabalho estuda as relações entre empresas e o Estado, demonstrando os pontos falhos do atual controle de impostos realizado sobre os documentos fiscais que utilizam o papel como mídia, e procura demonstrar as vantagens da utilização do documento eletrônico em termos de segurança, praticidade e economia. Também é proposto um protocolo criptográfico para emissão de documentos fiscais eletrônicos entre empresas, incluindo o Fisco no processo. O protocolo é analisado e validado usando-se Redes de Petri

Eine Analyse der Literatur zur Referenzmodellierung im Geschäftsprozessmanagement unter Berücksichtigung quantitativer Methoden

Im Geschäftsprozessmanagement nimmt die Referenzmodellierung bei der Gestaltung von Geschäftsprozessen eine große Bedeutung ein, da auf bereits existierende Modelle zurückgegriffen werden kann. So kann Zeit für die Entwicklung der Prozesse eingespart und von bereits etabliertem Wissen profitiert werden. Die vorliegende Masterarbeit analysiert die Literatur im Bereich der Referenzmodellierung im Geschäftsprozessmanagement unter Berücksichtigung quantitativer Methoden. Es werden insbesondere die Forschungsrichtungen bzw. Themenbereiche, Entwicklungen und der aktuelle Stand der Literatur in diesem Bereich ermittelt. Zunächst werden deutsch- und englischsprachige Artikel nach bestimmten Kriterien ausgewählt. Anschließend folgt eine quantitativ orientierte Analyse der Literatur. Dabei kommt die Latente Semantische Analyse zum Einsatz, mit deren Hilfe Themenbereiche ermittelt werden und die einzelnen Beiträge den ermittelten Themenbereichen zugeordnet werden können. Darüber hinaus wird die Entwicklung der Anzahl der Artikel in den Themenbereichen im Zeitverlauf betrachtet und auf Unterschiede zwischen der deutsch- und englischsprachigen Literatur eingegangen. In der darauf folgenden qualitativ orientierten Analyse werden die Artikel der einzelnen Themenbereiche inhaltlich analysiert und der aktuelle Stand der Forschung dargestellt. Nicht zuletzt werden die Ergebnisse der qualitativen Analyse in Bezug zu den Ergebnissen der quantitativen Analyse gesetzt