Software Architecture

of
Supply Chain Management

By:
Biplab Basak
M.Tech Industrial Engineering & Management
Dept of Management Studies
Indian School of Mines
Dhanbad

1 November 2, 2021
Contents

 Introduction to Supply Chain Management (SCM)

 Information Technology in SCM
 Traditional Integrated Systems
 Drawbacks in traditional systems
 Dynamic Supply Chain and its architecture
 Implementing the architecture

2 November 2, 2021
What is Supply Chain Management?

 Management of a chain or network of business

unit linked by flow of information (essentially
bidirectional), materials, money and services
and their relationship with the main activities of
adding maximum value to all activities at
demand assessment and terminations to the
delivery of finished product (or services) to the
ultimate consumer combating desired benefits
to all units of the chain.

3 November 2, 2021
So the whole idea is to ….

 reduce of uncertainty in decision making

processes
 seamless flow good and materials between
organizations in the supply chain
 information exchange between the
organizations
 improved customer service at reduced
overall costs.

4 November 2, 2021
Information Technology in SCM

 To make decision-making possible, there has to

be efficient, reliable and timely data capture,
data availability at various locations and the
ease with which it can be manipulated for the
purpose of decision-making.
 Reports and statistics, which allow the
monitoring of supply chain performance, can be
generated.

5 November 2, 2021
Traditional Integrated Systems

 Geographical Information System (GIS)

 Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
 MRP and MRP-II
 Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP)
Modern
 Extended-ERP (E-ERP) Approach
 Global E-biz

6 November 2, 2021
 Why a new architecture?
….drawbacks of existing systems

 Past - one organization Result is:

dominating the other
organizations in the supply
chain.
 hierarchical control to achieve
integral logistics management
across organizational
boundaries.
 forced to obey to the
instructions of the dominant
organization.
 one central information system
with fixed procedures
 Higher price-quality ratio
of products
 Higher productivity
But:
 Does not contribute to
the flexibility of the supply
chain
 Denies customer with
option for dynamic
product assortment
 Subordinate
organizations cannot
change their portfolio

7 November 2, 2021
 Why a new architecture?
….drawbacks of existing systems

Traditional ERP systems and EDI interfaces are not equipped for
supply chain management across networked organizations. This
is because:
 ERP systems focus on the integral management of processes
within a company. Because of its central architecture, an ERP
system assumes one central organization, but in dynamic
networks there is no central point of authority.
 The procedural ERP software can not easily support the coupling
and decoupling of organizations to the dynamic network.
 ERP systems have intelligence for co-ordination, but miss the
flexibility needed for networked organizations.
 The EDI systems and interfaces do not provide additional
functions for logistics control across organizations. They can align
with the structure of networked organizations, but lack the
intelligence for co-ordination across the supply chain.

8 November 2, 2021
 Hierarchical Approach
Supply chain management by domination of one
organization over others

Source: Verwijmeren, Martin, ‘Software component architecture in supply chain management’, Computers in
Industry, 2004
9 November 2, 2021
 Network Organization
….is the answer
Characteristics:
 continuously reform to A co-ordination
accommodate mechanism which
changing market is an intermediate
demand. between
 autonomous control,
market co-ordination
 common goals, and
 mutual trust,
hierarchical
 information exchange,
co-ordination
 distributed ownership,
 close co-operation and
 variable coupling

10 November 2, 2021
Network Organization
….is the answer

11 November 2, 2021
 Proposed Architecture
We already have a system in place. The idea is to augment the system
with intelligent software components.
 ERP, enterprise resource planning systems:
 functions: purchase, materials management and sales;
 users: manufacturers and trading companies.

 WMS, warehouse management systems:

 functions: receipts put-away, bin management and order picking;
 users: logistics service providers and wholesalers.

 TMS, transportation management systems:

 functions: transport booking, planning and monitoring;
 users: forwarders and carriers.
12 November 2, 2021
 Proposed Architecture

Source: Verwijmeren, Martin, ‘Software component architecture in supply chain management’, Computers in
Industry, 2004
13 November 2, 2021
Proposed Architecture

14 November 2, 2021
Salient features…

 The software components in the architecture are called

supply chain engines (SCEs)
 The required intelligence is built in the software
components, whereas the component structure enables
the required flexibility.
 The supply chain engines can run on the computers of
the different organizations in the supply chain.
 The ERP, WMS and TMS focus on internal management,
the SCEs add functions and data for external
management to the supply chain architecture.

15 November 2, 2021
Salient features…(contd.)

 Communication engines:
 function: basic communication between the systems (and
users) in the supply chain;
 examples: data communication, message conversion and
flow control engines.
 Information engines:
 function: transparent information over the systems (and
users) in the supply chain;
 examples: stock visibility, track and trace and report query
engines.
 Management engines:
 function: advanced management across the systems (and
users) in the supply chain;
 examples: inventory management, production management
and distribution management engines.

16 November 2, 2021
Implementing the Architecture

The technology used for the

implementation of the supply chain
engines includes:
 application components (SCEs),

 interfaces of the components and

 common services for the components

17 November 2, 2021
Components, interfaces and services in
the supply chain architecture.

18 November 2, 2021
Components, interfaces and services
in the supply chain architecture.....
(contd)
The software components have interfaces for communication
in the organization and across the supply chain. The supply
chain engines can be equipped with the following interfaces:
 System interfaces to other supply chain engines, for
example, interfaces between distribution management
engines to support integral distribution management.
 System interfaces to local information systems, for
example, interfaces between the inventory management
engines and ERP systems to retrieve the stock levels.
 User interfaces to users, for example, the supervisor
(strategist) of the inventory management engine who sets
the parameters for integral inventory management.
 Database interfaces, for example, to store the details of a
customer order in a distribution management engine
persistently in a database.

19 November 2, 2021
Components, interfaces and services
in the supply chain architecture.....
(contd)
 Naming service: the naming service contains a directory
of logical names and technical addresses of components.
With the help of a naming service, a client component
can send a service request to a server component by
using its logical name. The naming service provides the
technical address of the server component.

 Trading service: components can use a trading service

to publish their service interfaces with names, attributes
and types. Components can search for available services
in other components. The trading service provides
references to the discovered services, so that a client
component can send a service request to the server
component.

20 November 2, 2021
Components, interfaces and services
in the supply chain architecture.....
(contd)
 Messaging service: a messaging service uses
intermediate queues for the exchange of messages
(requests/responses) between components to guarantee
message delivery. Asynchronous communication makes
that a client component does not have to wait for a
response after a request has been sent. Publish-
subscribe features facilitate distribution of messages from
a publisher to all subscribers.
 Transaction service: a transaction is a sequence of
operations in which several components can be involved.
The transaction service makes sure that a transaction
complies with the requirements of atomicity, consistency,
isolation and durability. A two-phase commit protocol
ensures that all components commit to transaction
completion or roll back to an original state in the event of
a failure.

21 November 2, 2021
Conclusion
 The software component architecture for supply chain
management across dynamic organizational networks
consists of existing systems supplemented with new
software components.
 The SCEs provide both the intelligence and the flexibility
as required for the integral management in dynamic
supply chains.

22 November 2, 2021
You may shoot……

 Questions please !!!!!

23 November 2, 2021
References
….helping hands

 Raghuram, G and Rangaraj, N, ‘Logistics and Supply

Chain Management – Cases and Concepts’,
Macmillan Business Book, 2000, PP 355-364.
 Altekar, Rahul, ‘Supply Chain Management: Concepts
and Cases’, Eastern Economy Edition, 2005, PP 7–10.

 Verwijmeren, Martin, ‘Software component

architecture in supply chain management’, Computers
in Industry, 2004, PP 165-178.
 Simpson, Stacy, ‘The Software Supply Chain Integrity
Framework: Defining Risks and Responsibilities for
Securing Software in the Global Supply Chain’,
SAFECode, July, 2009, PP 1-11

24 November 2, 2021
 Thank You

Empowering SCM Excellence

……Towards an Integrated Global Supply Chain

The author can be contacted at basak.biplab@gmail.com