A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Information Management, School of Engineering and Technology

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2007

Supply chain management (SCM) systems must be able to gather and exchange information from across many applications, organizations, locations, and automatic information retrieval technologies, such as RFID. Furthermore, to support traceability requirements, these systems must also collect the contextual information that will allow analysts to determine the source and scope of problems in a SCM. This thesis proposes a framework for SCM process and information control based on workflow modeling standards, web services technology, and the concept of context awareness from the domain of ubiquitous computing. In order to characterize and evaluate this framework, we have developed a prototype to support the real-world supply chain management requirements for the export of chicken in Thailand. We first gathered the requirements for this case study from the relevant government offices, and then developed a working system using the Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) standard and web services. We then compare the framework with an existing industrial architecture, IBM's Websphere for RFID, using a detailed multi»criteria analysis from the architectural, operational, strategic, and administration perspectives. The results of this analysis suggest that the proposed framework is better suited for large-scale heterogeneous and frequently changing SCM systems, such as Thailand's poultry export industry, and that the IBM architecture would be more effective for well-defined, stable, tightly integrated SCMs, such as a factory floor