Internet supply chains

[Bob Haugen <linkage@interaccess.com>]

Please forgive me if you consider this off-topic.  I promised
Martin Bryan that I would post a document I was putting together
with UML diagrams for REA supply chains, and thought maybe
some other people might be interested.

Anyway, here is the URL:
http://homepage.interaccess.com/~linkage/REAsupplychains.htm 

It has never been clear to me how deep into supply chains or
value systems the ebXML business process models want to go.
Martin's paper (from the Syntax Free Models thread) goes about 
as far as mine, and would be a good comparison.  He called it
"business process chains".

Internet-hosted supply chains are a somewhat different perspective
than the usual ebXML pattern of messaging between different parties' 
internal application systems.  The supply chain perspective assumes
that significant interactions happen in an overview supply chain model
on Web servers, dipping into the participants' internal systems only
as required.  So the message traffic could be more back-and-forth
between companies and the supply chain server, than between
companies directly.

This is happening now in the construction industry hubs, and upcoming
in hosted supply chain systems for the auto industry, electronics, 
food, general retail, etc.  I am not suggesting ebXML get into this
area - it would be premature, and divert efforts from the message
standards.  But by the time ebXML standards are fully cooked, 
the Internet supply chains will be crying out for standardization
(or so I think)...

I'm really interested in this topic (obviously).  If others are too,
maybe we should take the discussion off-list and set up a 
separate eGroup or something.

Thanks for your attention,
Bob Haugen