B2B电子商务平台中信息集成与供应链运作

1、b2b e-hubs and information integration in supply chain operationsthe authorsxiaofeng zhao, department of business administration, university of mary washington,fredericksburg, virginia, usahui zhao, software engineering institute, east china normal university, shanghai, chinajianrong hou, aetna scho

2、ol of management, shanghai jiaotong university, shanghai,chinaabstractpurpose 一 b2b e-hubs have been studied by is researchers for close to a decade, and supplychai n integration is a critical topic for supply chai n man agement. however, the in terface of the twotopic areas has not received adequat

3、e attention from both researchers and practitioners thispaper aims to examine the impact of b2b e-hubs on supply chain integration, with particularemphasis on information integrati on, b2b e-hub architecture, and enabli ng tech no logies design/methodology/approach 一 general system theory (gst) prov

4、ides the theoreticalframework. the main approach is theoretical analysis of information integration and development ofe-hub architecture the paper discusses how information integration can be achieved through b2be-hubs and explores extensible markup ianguage e-hub architecture and technologiesfindin

5、gs 一 gst could provide the theoretical framework of integration, whereas informationintegration is the foundation of broader supply chain integration. e-hubs open up communicationand enlarge network!ng opportunities and thus tremendously affect information integration. byanalyzing b2b e-hubs, this p

6、aper explores the mechanism of information integration and points outman agerial and technical limitati ons. although there are many challenges, e-hubs create value byaggregating and matching buyers and sellers, creating marketplace liquidity, and reducingtransaction costs. e-hubs could be a crucial

7、 solution to supply chain integration.originality/value 一 the paper uses gst as the theoretical foundation to analyze informationintegration in supply chain operations. the paper explores how e-hubs can support supply chainintegration, examines the design and development of b2b e-hub architecture, a

8、nd compares someenabli ng tech no logies. the research provides an un dersta nding of how data in terchange soluti onscan be implemented in supply chain operationsarticle type:research paperkeyword(s):business-to-business marketing; supply chain management; integration; exterisible markuplanguage; g

9、eneral system theory.jour nal:management research reviewvolume:33number:10year:2010pp：961-979copyright©emerald group publishing limitedissn:2040-8269introduction 1.the widespread popularity of supply chain management (scm) leads to numerous kinds ofdefinitions by different industries and academ

10、ics there seems to be a convergence toward thecentral theme of scm. the theme suggests that scm is an integrative philosophy of managingflows of material, information, and finance from the earliest supplier of raw materials to the ultimatecustomer. scm can thus be defi ned as the in teg rati on of k

11、ey business processes from end userthrough original suppliers that provides products, services, and information and hence adds valuefor customers and other stakeholders scm is a systematic, strategic coordination of the traditionalbusiness functions within a particular company and across companies w

12、ithin the supply chain, forthe purpose of improving the long-term performance of the individual companies and the supplychain as a whole (menzter, 2001),in general, scm involves the flows of material, information, and finance in a network consisting ofcustomers, suppliers, manu facturers, and distri

13、butors material flows in elude both physical productflows from suppliers to customers through the chain and reverse flows via product returns, servicing,recycling, and disposal. information flows involve order transmission and delivery status. financialflows include credit terms, payment schedules,

14、and consignment and title ownership arrangements.these flows cut across multiple functions and areas both within a company and across companies(figure 1: lambert ef m/，1998; menzter, 2001), numerous success stories imply that a tightlyintegrated supply chain can lead to superior chain performance an

15、d improved competitiveness foreach of the involved channels. integration of these flows within and across companies is critical toeffective scm.a truly integrated supply chain does more than reduce costs it also creates value for the company， its supply chain partners, and its shareholders (lee, 200

16、0), as mentioned earlier, the core of scm is integration. lee points out that supply chain integration constitutes the following three dimensions: info rmati on in teg rati on, coordi nation, and orga nizational linkage. information in tegration exchanges information and knowledge through informatio

17、n sharing, collaborative planning, forecasting, and replenishment. coordination and resource sharing exchanges decision and work through decision delegation, realignment, and outsourcing. organizational relationship linkage exchangeaccountability, risks/costs/gain through extended communication and

18、performanee measurement,and realignment.information integration refers to the sharing of information and knowledge among members of asupply chain. they share demand information, inventory status, capacity plans, productionschedules, promotion plans, dema nd forecasts, and shipment schedules (lee, 20

19、00). themembers also coordinate forecasting and replenishment. information integration is the foundationof broader supply chain integration. for companies to coordinate their material, information, andfinancial flows, they must have access to information reflecting their true supply chain picture at

20、 alltimes without information integration, few gains can be made in overall supply chain integration.the capability for all supply chain partners to have access to share information on a timely basis istherefore a key to improving supply chain performance.however, management and integration of infor

21、mation between business partners continues to be asignificant challenge for businesses. despite the advancements in the emergence of datastandards, companies are facing difficult decisions about how to integrate systems with externalpartners to gain competitive advantages over the past few years the

22、 b2b sector of e-business hasgrown exponentially. technical compatibility presents a great challenge in b2b e-hub and supplychain integration, which typically involves communication across a variety of hardware andsoftware.for organizations that exchange data via e-hubs, web commerce-server applicat

23、ions are useful forb2c, but they are not sufficient for b2b n eeds .in gen eral, orga nizations n eed to exchange dataand messages in more general and flexible ways than they can do with commerce servers. theyneed to exchange orders, order confirmations, requests for quotations, item inventory statu

24、s data,accounts payable and accounts receivable data, and a myriad of other types of data anddocuments. system integration methodologies have evolved from a technical orientation to an effortthat focuses on inter-organization perspectives that trend toward b2b integration.in this research, based on

25、general system theory (gst), we discuss supply chain integration andhow b2b e-hubs can help information integration in supply chain operations. we analyze howinformation integration in scm can be achieved through new trend of e-hubs. understanding howthese electronic hubs work is crucial to creating

26、 a successful e-business strategy and supply chainin tegrati on. although there are potential man agerial and technical challe nges, we ide ntify thate-hubs greatly facilitate the communication and collaboration among some of the key tradingpartners. we present a framework for integrating the existi

27、ng e-hubs into scm so that future e-hubscould provide better solutions to scm. we hope that the framework helps both researchers andpractitioners identify promising e-hub business models 一 ones that are both profitable anddefe nsible this paper is orga nized as follows .in secti on 2, we prese nt gs

28、t as a theoretical foundati on toexamine the relationships of integration and supply chain operations, with a particular emphasis oninfo rmation integ ratio n. secti on 3 con tains a discussion on how information in tegration can beachieved through b2b e-hubs. in secti on 4, we propose an architectu

29、re that in teg rates informationin supply chain operations and compare enabling technologies section 5 addresses theman agerial and tech nical challe nges and suggests future directi ons.gst and information integration in supply chain operations 2.to stay competitive, enlightened companies have stri

30、ved to achieve greater coordination andcollaboration among supply chain partners in an approach called supply chain integration (lee andwhang, 2000).the companies must expand their integrated behavior to incorporate customers and suppliers anintegrated supply chain is more comprehensive than traditi

31、onal systems, such as enterpriseresource planning (erp) or decision support system (dss).however, integration of business functions and supply chain operations has long been criticized bythe lack of guiding theories. very little research describes and examines the theoretical groundworkfor the integ

32、ration of busi ness functions. by analyzi ng the features of an in teg rated supply chain, wepropose gst as the refereneed theoretical framework, which can introduce various definitions andmechanisms to reveal the nature of supply chain integraten.gst and integrationsystem thinking can be traced bac

33、k very early in human history. a system can be defined as agroup of in teracti ng, in terrelated, or interdepende nt eleme nts that function together as a whole toaccomplish a goal. however, the term gst had not been invented until the 1950s biologist vonbertlanffy (1972) integrated earlier system t

34、hinking and proposed the gst. gst as a meta-theorycan be used to bridge many models with different assumptions the major concern of gst is toprovide a superstructure, which can be applied to various scientific fields. in other words, gst iscon cerned with developing a systematic, theoretical framewo

35、rk for describi ng gen eral relati on shipsof the empirical world the contribution of living/organic/open systems to organization study is that itexcluded the nonliving systems from gst and addressed organization related issues such asstructure, function, subsystem, information, control, adaptation,

36、 system boundary, environmentgrowth, and integration. all these concepts are related to supply chain integration (zhao et 乩2006).gst was proposed to tran see nd discipli ne boun daries as a meta-theory, it differs totally from theconventional theories conventional theories are usually tied to a set

37、of assumptions however,gst does not preclude any assumpti ons before it is applied to a particular con text. therefore, gstcan be used to in teg rate existi ng theories or in vent new theories to fit the needs of differentsituations. nonetheless, gst has one universal assumption 一 norvsummative assu

38、mption: thewhole is greater than sum of its parts it points out that things emerge when two or more parts acttogether that are not seen in those parts alone gst implies that organization as a system musthave purpose and goals the aim of system theory for business is to develop an objective,understan

39、dable environment for decision making. this lays the theoretical foundation and basicreason of supply chain integration.scm takes a systematic approach to viewing the channel as a single entity, rather than as a set offrag me nted parts, each performi ng its own functi on. it focuses on managi ng th

40、e total flow of goodsto the ultimate customer. each partner in the supply chai n directly and in directly affects theperformance of all the other supply chain members and overall channel performanee. the wholeperformance is greater than the sum of those of its partners the objective of scm should be

41、 thesynchronization of all channel activities to create customer values.actually, siau (2004) observed that a supply chain should have the following features thesefeatures differentiate supply chain integration from expedient measures such as making traditionalerp web-based or combing erp with analy

42、tical supply chain applications:. these systems, as a whole, will cover all stages of the supply chain. these systems exist as separate components, thus offer more flexible choices to meet thespecial needs of a company. for a targeted supply chain such systems can independently provide not only oper

43、ationmanagement functions, but also strategic, analytical, and decision support functions. such systems are interoperable and can be integrated seamlessly with each other, and with other company's it system and consumers along the supply chain through e-businesscomponents the integration is dyna

44、mic, which means a company is able to choose and integrate with those partner supply chains that best suit its needs. this dynamic integration transforms the supply chain from a traditional fixed sequence into an adaptive network, which helpsthe company achieve both internal and external efficiencie

45、sthus, a system approach is necessary to view the channel as a whole and to manage the totalgoods inventory from the supplier to the ultimate customer. a strategic orientation towardcooperative efforts is required to synchr onize and con verge intra-firm and inter-firm operati on al a ndstrategic ca

46、pability into a unified whole based on gst, we consider supply chain as a complexsystem in whole, which consists of parts (supply chain partners), all having the same goal and thesame focus of serving customersestablishing the same goal and the same focus is a form of policy integration (menzter, 20

47、01).successful relationships aim to integrate channel policy to avoid redundancy and overlap whileseeking a level of corporation that allows partners to be more effective at low cost levels. policyintegration is possible if there are compatible cultural and management techniques among thesupply chai

48、n membersthe implementation of scm needs the integration of processes from sourcing to manufacturing andto distribution across the supply chain (lambert e/m/., 1998). as one subsystem of supply chainintegration (informatio n in tegration, coordinati on, and organizati on al linkage), i nfo rmati on

49、systemsthat links customers directly to suppliers enable the suppliers to react in real time to change in themarket places, thereby enabling supply and demand to be quickly matched lee (2000) analyzedthe three dime nsions (actually subsystems) of supply chain in tegrati on and con eluded thatinforma

50、tion integration lays the foundation of supply chain integration.along the supply chain, the flows of products/services and funds generate a large amount ofinformation that can be used in scm decision making. to ensure that the information is accurate,accessible in a timely manner, and of the curre

51、nt type, good supply chai n info rmati on tech no logyarchitecture, acting as an information enabler, must be constructed. therefore, an importantquestion arises: how information integration can be achieved in scm?b2b and information integrationtech no logical developments in information systems hav

52、e the potential to facilitate info rmatio nintegration and this, in turn, should enhanee the possibility of virtually integrating the entire supplychain. it has a pivotal role to play in improving communication and co-ordination by acting as anen abler.the rising of the internet has made it possible

53、 to virtually integrate various channel members andfunctions of a supply chain. to support the inter-organizational sharing of resources andcompetencies in network structure, communication and co-ordination needs to be maintained. theinter net helps to man age supply chain activities by offeri ng in

54、formatio n about what kind of productis demanded, what is available in the warehouse, what is in the manufacturing process, and what isentering and exiti ng the physical facilities and customer sites the in ternet offers a uniqueopport unity for supply chai n operations to take a central stage in th

55、e fast online econom y. becauseit is open, standards-based and virtually ubiquitous, business can use the internet to gain globalvisibility across their extended network of trading partners and help them respond quickly tochanging business conditions such as customer demand and resource availability

56、.while the most visible manifestation of the internet has been in the emergence of electroniccommerce as a new retail cha nn el, it is likely that the inter net will have an eve n more profoundimpact on b2b interaction, especially in the area of supply chain integration. the internet canredefine how

57、 back-end operations, product design and development, procurement, production,in ventory, distribution, after sales service support, and even marketing, are con ducted b2b farexceeds b2c both in the volume of transactions and rate of growth. b2b has been used bycompanies to communicate with business

58、 customers, suppliers, trading partners, and numerousother audiences who contribute to operating efficiency and effectivenessan important challenge in b2b is in teraction (medjahed et al., 2003). this has been a centralconcern because b2b applications are composed of autonomous, heterogonous, and distributedcomponents although b2b has already had a significant impact on supply chain integration, but itis safe to say that we have only s