A Platform for Collaborative Outbound Logistics

Electronic collaboration in the field of Supply Chain Management notably allows enhanced visibility for each of the involved actors through information sharing and global optimization through coordination. The proper achievement of these advantages is nevertheless not trivial since it implies the development of rather complex IT systems. Each actor is indeed mostly dealing with his own data semantics and custom processes so that data centralization and sharing is seldom achieved. Moreover, even if there would be a willingness to share data, this inherent heterogeneity would constitute a serious burden for software developments. The present chapter presents the results of a research aimed to partially solve these issues. It indeed presents the analysis and design of a platform for e-collaboration among the main Outbound Logistic (OL) actors based on a common conceptualization (including unified data semantics) and a set of services (supporting business processes realization). The chapter briefly presents the generic processes but mostly focuses on the representation of these services at a strategic level through an analysis of their added value and risk for OL actors potentially adopting the software solution.