SOA Cloud Computing: Modernized the Supply Chain Management Applications

摘要

Due to the growth of web and internet technologies in last few decades rapid changed has been seen in most of the Manufacturing industry which revolutionized the manufacturing industry from local to global competitive industry. There are increased in customer demand for customized and high quality product with lower cost and shorter life cycle. In this agile environment, manufacturing industry need to be competitive, innovative, inter operative and collaborative to meet the changing demands of customer while maintaining productivity. Traditional manufacturing execution systems, supply chain management (SCM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) are built upon rigid architecture that can't respond fully in dynamic environment. In these circumstances, the challenge is to develop an integrated solution that is intelligent, agile and robust and have the potential to meet environmental and customer demands. [1] In the modern world companies are investigating ways to optimize both cost and operational efficiency of each phase of their supply chain, such as planning and forecasting, sourcing and procurement, logistics and service and spare parts management. Cloud computing emerges as a useful technology that contributes to this optimization by providing infrastructure, platform and software solutions for the whole supply chain via internet. The utilization of cloud-based services in supply chain management leads to both financial and operational benefits. Lower cost in contrast to on-premises infrastructure cost, supply chain visibility, platform scalability and flexibility through supply chain partners' collaboration are some notable examples. In this paper, the use of cloud computing is presented in supply chain management and more specifically in the case of third-party logistics service providers. At a first level, the paper demonstrates what cloud technology is, how it can be used in supply chain management as well as its benefits compared with other systems. Furthermore, the paper outlines the implementation of cloud computing in the case of third-party logistics companies, especially from the perspectives of cost effectiveness and real-time visibility of shipment and inventory between companies and their customers.