An inter-enterprise workflow management system for B2B e-commerce and supply chain: a case study

Using e-commerce over the Internet is very cheap and convenient, which enlarges the view of enterprises and lets the enterprises have more chances to select their partners. To achieve these goals, we need the support of information systems, in which workflow management system is of significance. The inherent characteristics of a workflow system make it suitable to implement the cross organization management. Nowadays, however, systems which support cross organization management are not common. When developing a supply chain management system for a big motorcycle corporation in China, we have to construct an inter-enterprises workflow Architecture over Internet for the system by ourselves. The main part of the Architecture is a workflow supported inner supply chain and an integrated interface, through which the whole supply chain system cross several independent enterprises is constructed and the information exchange is fulfilled. This paper introduces how the system is designed and implemented in detail.