Advanced order planning in networked enterprises

Abstract

This paper describes an order planning system for dynamic networked enterprises, addressing the requirements of a make-to-order business environment. A distributed and decentralised information system, based on an architecture of agents and extensively using the internet, was designed and implemented in order to provide new and more powerful decision support concerning order management across each node of the network. The system aims at responding to the basic requirements of cooperativeness, integration and configurability in business networking environments. It was developed under the scope of the Co-Operate European Project, and implements the functionality of a general order promising process viewed as a distributed business process.