Supply chain management systems: state of the art and vision

Effectively integrating the information and material flows within the demand and supply process is all about supply chain management. Information technology is bringing opportunities and challenges to supply chain management and making it grow at an even faster pace. Supply chain management system can be regarded as a type of distributed information management system, of which agent technology provides the ultimate in its development. This paper reviews the state of the art of conventional supply chain applications provided by top 20 manufacturing software vendors. Requirements for next generation of supply chain management systems are presented in detail.