An e-releaser of production orders in the extended enterprise

Abstract

This study has the objective to apply new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and multi-agent modelling concepts in order to support the business process of production orders release in extended/virtual enterprises. In a previous publication (Tatsiopoulos, Computers in Industry, 33, 335–344, 1997) an object-oriented orders release reference model has been defined as a link between production management and shop floor control software in the one-firm environment. This study's main objective is to extend this model in the multifirm extended enterprise, taking advantage of agent technology and the internet. The proposed solution is an integrated application called e-releaser, which is responsible for the order release process management in three different levels, these being the partner selection and order management, the material management and the capacity management level. Each one of these three sub processes is supported and managed by an agent based submodule of the e-releaser tool. Finally, the e-releaser application was field-tested in an industrial user of the apparel sector and gave rather satisfactory results in improving predefined business performance indicators such as process lead-time, process cost and cost per order.

Keywords:

• software agents
• orders release
• extended enterprise
• apparel industry

Acknowledgments

Ilias P. Tatsiopoulos is Head of the Industrial Management and OR Section of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). He is also Vice-Chairman of the Greek Government Committee for Purchasing and Chairman of the Institute for Production Management (HMA) of the Hellenic Management Association. He has been active for several years as a professional production engineer in both industrial and consulting firms and he served as a Lecturer in management information systems at the Economic University of Athens. He studied Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at NTUA (1978) and followed post-graduate studies at the TH Aachen (Germany) and the University of Lancaster (UK) under a NATO grant. He holds a PhD (1983) in Operational Research from the University of Lancaster. He has been a member of the Senate of NTUA and he serves in the Editorial Board of the Production Planning & Control Journal.

Stavros T. Ponis graduated from the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) in 1996. His Master thesis was in the field of manufacturing information systems, contributing in the elaboration of an expert system for the selection of ERP software packages. After working for two years as an IT manager for a large Greek apparel company, he now holds a permanent position as a Research Associate in the Sector of Industrial Management and Operational Research (SIMOR) of NTUA. He also holds a PhD in Reference Models and Information Systems from National Technical University Athens. His research interests extend to the fields of Business Process Modelling and Simulation, Supply Chain Management and Distributed Artificial Intelligence.

Elias A. Hadzilias is a Research Engineer at the Section of Industrial Management and Operations Research of the Mechanical Engineering School, NTUA. His research interests include enterprise modeling, virtual organizations, e-business ontology, e-logistics, information systems analysis and design, quality assurance and workflow management systems. Dr Hadzilias received his PhD (2003) and Diploma (1997) in Mechanical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens. Since 1997 he has participated in several research projects and is a certified seminar trainer.