Reusable Component Technology in the Development of Agile Supply Chain Management System

Agile Supply Chain Management (ASCM) is one of the ke y techniques, which support dynamic enterprise alliance and realize agile manufa cturing. But the optimal run of ASCS depends on a good-constructed Agile Supply Chain Management System (ASCMS), so that the materials flow, information flow a nd funding flow in the supply chain are used with high efficiency. The requireme nts of ASCMS are constantly changeable, which requires that ASCMS has dynamical reuse, integration and open interface. Reusable components theory is one of the most important directions of software engineering. It’s a feasible approach to solve software crisis and to increase software productivity and quality. ASCMS d eveloped with reusable components can easily be re-constructed, and has good op en interfaces. It will also sharply shorten the development life circle of syste m, and avoid unnecessary errors that result from the process of re-developing t hose components. In order to develop ASCMS based on reusable components quickly, the first thing we need to do is to construct the framework for ASCMS called system architecture . The framework referred in this context is not only a reference system of ASCMS , but also the operation system (including run-time library and communication p rotocols), which the ASCMS determined. So we can abstract logic units of the sys tem (they are the logic base of the ASCMS components), and the relationships amo ng them. And the operation system and communication protocols provide these comp onents with a running platform. Of course, the most important thing is to constr uct an abundant components depository. Components in the depository should h ave some properties such as: (1) Components should be built upon a specific oper ation system (e.g., windows) and standard communication protocols (e.g., IIOP in CORBA’s specification); (2)Self-containment, that shows it’s unnecessary to include other components when some component is reused since that component cont ains the needed relevant components in itself; (3) Identification, components ha ve to be clearly identifiable, that shows components are contained in a file rat her than spread over other systems and intermixed with other modules of soft ware; (4) Functionality, that shows components have a clearly specified function ality; (5)Open interface; (6) Comprehensive and brief documentation Moreover, it ’s necessary to classify these components properly so as to manage the deposito ry efficiently. Thus in this paper, we will firstly describe in detail the basic reusable model of SCMS and also the properties and depiction methods of business objects an d business components in SCMS. And then we will establish the 5-layer model of business components in SCMS and discuss the methods to get and store the reusabl e components. Based on those introduced, we will provide an assembling method fo r the constructing of SCMS, making use of component technology and an applicatio n is presented.

Agile Supply Chain Management (ASCM) is one of the ke y techniques, which support dynamic enterprise alliance and realize agile manufa cturing. But the optimal run of ASCS depends on a good-constructed Agile Supply Chain Management System (ASCMS), so that the materials flow, information flow a nd funding flow in the supply chain are used with high efficiency. The requireme nts of ASCMS are constantly changeable, which requires that ASCMS has dynamical reuse, integration and open interface. Reusable compo...