Flexible Semantic Services to Facilitate Innovative and Dynamic Ubiquitous Supply Chain Networks
Nina Schoenemann, Kai Fischbach, Alexander Manteuffel · 2009
Today's sophisticated supply chain systems leverage Ubiquitous Computing technologies like RFID. These technologies provide fine-grained item-level information and allow companies to automatically integrate product and supply chain information seamlessly into their information systems. Upcoming developments include the application of sensors to capture rich information about status, whereabouts and the environment of products within material flows of supply chains. P2P-based solutions allow very scalable and efficient exchange of large amounts of this distributed information. The concept of semantic services can further support sharing of sensor-based information amongst heterogeneous and autonomous supply chain participants by enabling computer-interpretable service descriptions. Existing predominant solutions have not yet realized the promising combination of P2P and semantic services for RFID- and sensor-based based supply chain systems. Therefore, in this paper we provide a semantic P2P system design for such systems, where services may dynamically be added or newly composed. We argue, the system supports dynamic supply chains and innovation of services within supply chain networks. We present a prototype and discuss the system's advantages and limitations.