Introducing the concept of information supply chains: the Buddy project

Abstract

The European Community ESPRIT Project Buddy addresses the needs of industrial organisations to reduce information processing time, improve added and residual value of information, and reduce processing and distribution costs and “leadtimes”. It deals with the information supply‐chain as an important entity, whose performance and optimisation very significantly affect the efficiency and performance of industrial enterprises. A conceptual modelling and simulation environment is proposed for analysing information supply‐chain management strategies, policies and decisions. A decomposable, “autonomous agents” approach is adopted to specify information supply chain models. Models in turn are defined in terms of their constituent information supply chain “agents” (e.g. suppliers, buyers, distributors, etc). This includes their structural relationships, interaction “protocols” and co‐ordination policies.

Information Integration of Drug Discovery and Clinical Studies to Support Complex Queries Using an Information Supply Chain Framework

“…Such information is derived from other information and in many ways resembles a Bill of Materials (BOM). Yet, in order to model ISCs information dependencies need to be understood [15]. Semantic conflicts as outlined in the exemplary cases ( Fig.…”

Digital asset management in marketing communication logistics

“…Information and material flows have been perceived as complementary parts of logistics (Gurãu et al ., 2001; Christopher, 1998; Rayport and Sviokla, 1995). The term “information logistics” was introduced by Walsh and Koumpis (1998), who wanted to apply logistics principles in information technology, to “reduce information processing time, improve the added and residual value of information, and reduce filtering, processing and distribution costs and ‘leadtimes’ [sic!]”. Information flows were especially stressed in the field since the introduction of the supply chain management concept (Mason‐Jones and Towill, 1998; Singh, 1996).…”

Implementing information supply chains: the IST Adrenalin project

“…In the following, an overall approach for defining fractal elements used for building and tearing down information supply chain components, either within the intra-or at the inter-enterprise environment of a networked enterprise, is presented. In Walsh and Koumpis (1998), some higher-level rules, guidance, and descriptions were provided, but most importantly, a coherent set of consultancy for support provision both at the organisational and the IT levels for developing and presenting information chain components that ensured a common denominator for understanding, comparing, and integrating architectures.…”

“…Management of information flow in the enterprise uses the information supply chain concept, while our drive towards process orientation is tackled using the fractal company approach (Warnecke, 1983).`C onventional'' supply chains concern all material-management stages from the supply of raw material through to the sale of the final product to the end customer. The information supply chain (ISC) is the parallel communications route, ranging from supplier through the enterprise itself to (and including) the customer (Walsh and Koumpis, 1998) consisting of nodes and links that may comprise software, hardware and/or humans (user). This chain links the communication between those nodes.…”