Supporting production processes with lightweight platforms

Abstract

This article begins by describing the trend towards greater adaptability in today's business processes and its implication for supply chains and their emerging characteristics. One such characteristic is greater emphasis on the need for collaboration for chains to respond dynamically to changing environments. Support systems require ways to integrate the social connectivity and interactivity that characterise collaboration into business processes in ways that enable the process to be dynamically changed. The paper considers the limitations of current methodologies in providing ways to support dynamic supply chains. The paper describes models that identify requirements for such systems and convert the models to lightweight implementations that support flexibility. It uses ideas from complexity theory and social patterns to create the models.

Keywords:

• supply chains
• collaboration