BPM-based integration of supply chain process modeling, executing and monitoring

초록

Due to increased competition in business environments, many companies implement Supply Chain Management (SCM), which utilizes advanced information technologies. Since the execution of the Supply Chain Process (SCP) requires interaction and information sharing among multiple organizations, there have been efforts to apply Business Process Management (BPM) techniques to SCM implementation. Whereas previous research has focused mainly on automated execution of the SCP, effective SCM requires the integrated lifecycle management of SCP that includes modeling, execution, and monitoring. Thus, in this research, we develop, based on the BPM system, an integrated architecture to support modeling, execution and monitoring of SCP. To model the SCP, we propose to use Business Process Execution Language (BPEL), which facilitates easy process sharing among supply chain members who adopt heterogeneous information systems. Since SCM decisions require complex analytical calculations concerning multiple different companies, it is necessary to separate the process logic and the decision algorithm. Thus, we developed an SCP execution structure in which the decision algorithm is implemented as an agent that is invoked using Web services. While BPM enables process monitoring, the multi-organizational environment considered here involves the important issue of the setting and controlling of access levels of each company's process information to be monitored. To address this problem, we propose a role-based supply chain process monitoring (RSCPM) model. A prototype system is implemented.

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