Utilizing Mobile Web Services for Supply Chains

In today's supply chain management, organizations need to address complex interdependencies and create an extended enterprise that looks beyond its manufacturing plants, and customers increasingly expect companies, suppliers and distributors to provide real time information about their orders. These escalating customer demands are forcing corporations to adopt mobile technology to optimize and streamline the information, product and financial flows in the supply chain. But supply chain processes in companies today are desktop-centric. The focus of this paper is on the opportunities Web services can offer to improve supply chain efficiencies in the mobile environment. A three-tier architecture is described to utilize Web services for users with handheld devices in supply chains. With this architecture a mobile solution is specified to develop the next generation supply chains