Business-to-business electronic commerce and convergent assembly supply chain management

Electronic commerce (e-commerce) can occur between a business and its custo mers, as well as between a business and its suppliers. To facilitate intero rganizational e-commerce it is often necessary to share supply and demand i nformation between supply chain partners. Based on our analysis of supply c hains in several industries we identify the mechanisms (business processes) required for effective supply chain management. We also identify the infor mation system components needed to support these mechanisms, show how the i ndividual components can be integrated into an information infrastructure f ramework and identify some technologies currently available that can fit wi thin our proposed infrastructure. We illustrate the usefulness of our frame work by simulating convergent assembly (commonly associated with motor vehi cle and aerospace production) supply chain performance under various inform ation-sharing strategies supported by our proposed infrastructure. We find that inventory costs can be reduced while maintaining acceptable order fulf ilment cycle times. This is true because information, which provides the ba sis for enhanced coordination and reduced uncertainty, can substitute for i nventory.