The 11th Asia Pacific Industrial Engineering and Management Systems Conference

The 14th Asia Pacific Regional Meeting of International Foundation for Production Research
Melaka, 7 – 10 December 2010

Information System for Order Processing in the Supply Chain of

Manufacturing Enterprises
†1 2
Radwan, A. and Majid Aarabi
Department of Manufacturing and Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi
Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor, MALAYSIA
Email: ashraf@fkm.utm.my1
2
amajid4@live.utm.my

Khoei, M. R.
Department of Manufacturing and Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi
Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor, MALAYSIA
Email: mr.khoei@gmail.com

Abstract – Nowadays, high competitive market needs fast, effective, high responsiveness, online
interactive, 24 hours 7 days availability, easy to follow up orders processing, etc. Despite of the
growing importance of information systems (ISs) for Supply Chain Management (SCM) activities, the
lack of a comprehensive framework for modeling and developing IS for SCM has a negative impact on
the performance of small and medium size enterprises. In this paper, the Generic Enterprise
Reference Architecture (GERA) framework is implemented for modeling of Supply Chain
Management Information Systems (SCMISs). For researchers, the model provides an interdisciplinary
approach to understanding the range of Supply Chain Management Information System (SCMIS)
capabilities. With further study, the model and concepts could also be adapted for other strategic
enterprises IS applications. Thus, an information system model was designed and developed for order
processing in the supply chain of the manufacturing enterprises.

Keywords: Supply Chain Management, Information System, Framework, Order Processing, GERA,
GERAM

1. INTRODUCTION Systems alternatives. Due to that, companies face

Supply Chain Management Information
Systems have an extremely vital role in the ability of
companies to decrease expenses and increase the
accessibility of their supply chain. Supply Chain
Management Information Systems are information
systems used to organize information between
customers, distributors, manufacturers, suppliers, and
other members in the supply chain. Information
systems have significant effects on the integration of
the supply chain main elements, and are the major
enabling tools to respond to the customers demand,
according to their desired quality, in a shortest time
and with the lowest price.
However, there are some experimentally form
fit for evaluating the organizational skill held up by
the ambit of Supply Chain Management Information
________________________________________
† : Radwan, A. is a Professor, Dept. of Manufacturing & Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical
Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Malaysia. He received a Dr. Ing. Degree from Norwegian
University of Science and Technology, Norway in 1989.
complicated and perilous determinations appraising
and picking up a suitable Supply Chain Management
Information System solution or guaranteeing that
their executed systems are organized with their
business policies (Reddy et al., 2001). An
organizational skill is the aptitude of an organization
to attain its objectives by leveraging its different
resources (Ulrich at al., 1990).
Supply chain management and information
systems are firmly attached. Execution of supply
chain strategies will be extremely complicated with
no supporting of information systems.
Simultaneously, a lot of progresses in information
systems have been appeared from necessities set by
enterprises seeking cooperate with their members in
the supply chain area. For example, the progression
of internet services have been driven by a must for
 The 11th Asia Pacific Industrial Engineering and Management Systems Conference
The 14th Asia Pacific Regional Meeting of International Foundation for Production Research
Melaka, 7 – 10 December 2010

pliability and more open information systems
interfaces to uphold re-configurability
(Charu Chandra et al., 2007). The supply chain is an
expression that utilized progressively by logistics
specialists. Supply chain covers each attempt
entangled with manufacturing and delivering a last
product, from the providers to the clients. the basic
factors of the supply chain procedure are source,
plan, create and deliver which this factors completely
describe these attempts, that contain administer
provide and request, sourcing raw substances and
components, production and assembly, storage and
stock pursuing, demand entrance and demand
organization, allocation all over the channels, and
transference to the clients (Arrianto Mukti Wibowo,
et al., 1999). Supply chain management information
systems are the information systems between
companies that employ information and
communication technology to arrange information
inside and among the participator of a supply chain
like the clients, sellers, providers, and distributors
included in the utilization and supply of a special
product or service. Companies frequently use a
portfolio of supply chain management information
systems, which characteristically contain legacy
systems linked by electronic data interchange,
packaged applications employing Web-based
exchange of information or ideas, or some other
blend of information connection technology (Tim
McLaren et.al. 2004).
2. SCM INFORMATION SYSTEMS
2.1 Supply Chain Management description
Supply chain management is simply the
integration of the activities that respond to the
customer orders, in a way of obtaining the necessary
materials and/or components, and the required
services to transform them to products, which fulfills
the customer orders. Slack, N. et al (2001), stated
that supply chain management is the management of
the interconnection of organizations which relate to
each other through upstream and downstream
linkages between the different processes that produce
value in the form of products and services to the
ultimate consumer.
2.2 Supply Chain Management Information
The information consists of data, analysis
tools, methods, techniques and algorithms. Which are
concerning Inventory, Facilities, Transportations,
Cost, Prices, and Customers. Figure 1 shows basic
entities and interfaces of the supply chain
management drivers.

Information
Inventory
Facility
Transportation
Suppliers Customers
Costs
Prices
Customers

Figure 1: Basic entities and interfaces of the supply chain management drivers

There are three major macro processes in Supply
Chain Management (Sunil Chopra et al. 2007):
- Supplier Relationship Management (SRM):
Supplier & Design collaboration, Source
planning, Negotiation, and Buy.
- Internal Supply Chain Management (ISCM):
Strategic planning, Demand planning, Supply
planning, Fulfillment, and Field service.
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM):
Marketing, Sell, Order Processing, and
Call/Service center.
SCM Information systems should consider all of
them to have a succeeded SCMIS, and for using the
decision making in Manufacturing Enterprises. In a
comprehensive SCMIS, the mentioned drivers should
be considered in all three macro processes. The
proposed SCMIS has to provide a functional
 The 11th Asia Pacific Industrial Engineering and Management Systems Conference
The 14th Asia Pacific Regional Meeting of International Foundation for Production Research
integration of the three macros (SRM, ISCM, and
CRM).
In this system, our focus will be on the customer
order processing related IS in SCM. The GERAM
(Generalized Enterprise Reference Architecture and
Methodology) framework is implemented to model
our SCMIS.
3. SCMIS and GERA Framework
3.1 GERA Framework
This architecture (Generic Enterprise Reference
Architecture - GERA) is the most important
components of GERAM framework. It is used in
enterprise engineering and integration. GERA defines
some concepts of each enterprise and recommends
consider these for integration of their systems:
- Human oriented concepts: This concept considers
the human related aspects such as, roles, skills,
authority and so on.
- Process oriented concepts: Deals with functions
and activities should be done for each life-cycle
phases of systems.
- Technology oriented concepts: Deals with the
infrastructure that used to support the processes of
the system.
Also, to more comprehensive and detailed completely
of the studying system, GERA provides the views
that allow the operational processes to be described
as an integrated model. These views in details will be
discussed in next section.
3.2 Modeling of Information System for
Order Processing in SCM with GERA
This case study is the using of GERA for modeling of
Information System for Order Processing in Supply
Chain. The following subdivisions of models or t
views have been identified in GERA (Bernus P. et
al., 1996):
- Model Contents Views: function, information,
resource, organization;
- Purpose Views: customer service and product,
management and control;
- Implementation View: human implemented tasks,
automated tasks (mission support technology, and
management & control technology);
- Physical Manifestation Views: software, and
hardware.
According the life cycle of GERA, the development
of IS was done: Identification, Concept,
Requirements, Design (Preliminary, Detailed),
Implementation, Operation, and finally
Decommission. Each of modeling views and their
Melaka, 7 – 10 December 2010
details implement according the life cycle. Finally,
the different views of the Information Systems were
done with modeling tools. Because of the maximum
pages limitation, all of the done stages can't be
detailed in this paper, but we pointed some of them in
brief:
Identification:
As the first stage in this architecture, we defined the
entities of the system and their internal and external
relation. We did this stage with interview and the
study of documents. for identifying the necessary
entities and their details.
Concept:
After the definition of the entities, with analyzing and
using of the brain storming, we defined the business
plans, functional concepts, information, resources
(human and non-human of technical), organization,
objectives (products or services), controls, mission,
vision, values, strategies, objectives, policies, and
other conceptual details of the system.
Requirements:
After definition of the conceptual details of the
system, we defined the requirements of the system.
For this purpose, we divided these requirements to
the followings:
Functional requirements: according the desired
output and necessary information and reports, and,
we designed our system (Figure 3), for obtaining the
necessary output. With consider to these, we defined
the functional requirements of the system. The more
detailed functional modeling of the system was
designed in the next stages.
Information requirements: the databases, entities,
attributes, and their capabilities were defined in this
category. We listed the information requirements of
the system. The information modeling of these
entities will be designed in the next stages with using
of the modeling tools.
Resource requirements: the necessary resources
(includes: human or non-human) of the system
studied in this stage. With using of studying the
system, specify their needs study the feasibility of the
system with using of the result of this study.
Organization Requirements: according the objectives
of the system that we designed this system to obtain
them, we decided to rearrange and modify some parts
of the organization and the staffs.
Products & Customer Service requirements: with
using of interview and studying of the our system, we
can find the required useful output products and
services for the system.
Management & Control requirements: users and
operators authority, back-up and protecting the
system against the spam and virus are the
 Continuous Improvement

Function Function Function

Information Information Information

Function
Resource Resource
Resource

Organization Information Function Function

Organization Organization

Resource Information Information

Products & Products &
Products &
Customer Customer
Customer Organization Resource
Service Resource
Service
Service

Organization Organization
Products &
Management Management Management Customer
CONCEPT

& Control & Control Service Products & Products &

REQUIREMENT

& Control

OPERATION
Customer
IDENTIFICATION

Customer

DECOMMISSION
IMPLEMENTATION
DETAILED DESIGN
PRELIMINARY DESIGN

Human Tasks Human Tasks Service Service

Human Tasks Management
& Control
Non-Human Non-Human Non-Human Management Management
tasks tasks & Control & Control

Figure 2 – The used GERA framework for SCM IS

tasks
Human Tasks

Software Software Software

Non-Human
Design Design Design
tasks

Hardware Hardware Hardware

The 11th Asia Pacific Industrial Engineering and Management Systems Conference

Design Design Design

The 14th Asia Pacific Regional Meeting of International Foundation for Production Research
Melaka, 7 – 10 December 2010
 The 11th Asia Pacific Industrial Engineering and Management Systems Conference
The 14th Asia Pacific Regional Meeting of International Foundation for Production Research
Melaka, 7 – 10 December 2010

Figure 3–Functional model of the System

requirements that are considered for using this system
well.
Preliminary Design:
Functional Preliminary Design: the functional model
of the system with using of IDEF0 were designed, the
operational relation of the part of the system viewed,
optimize and ready to design in details and then
implemented.
Information Preliminary Design: after the defining
the databases, entities, attributes in previous stage.
Now, we designed the keys and obtain the
information model of them with using IDEF1X
(Menzel C., 1998) in this stage.
Resource Preliminary Design: the previously
designed necessary resources (includes: human or
non-human) of the system detailed more here in this
stage to prepare to obtain them.
Organization Preliminary Design: the required
organization that studied in the previous stage,
designed with details for ready to implement, the
responsibilities, roles, skills, authorities and
capabilities of the people specified here. For
implementation, we need more details that we did
them in the Detailed Design stage.
Products & Customer Service Preliminary Design:
the necessary products, services and output of the
system designed in more details here in this stage. In
this stage we coded the reports and with designing of
their patterns and feedback to the related persons and
departments to be more suitable for them at the end.
 The 11th Asia Pacific Industrial Engineering and Management Systems Conference
The 14th Asia Pacific Regional Meeting of International Foundation for Production Research
Management & Control Preliminary Design: users
and operators authority, back-up and holding the
system against the spam and virus and related
policies were designed and obtained here. We
decided to buy a valid licensed anti-virus and anti-
spam and also consider a good password check for
online accessed users of the system.
Human tasks Preliminary Design: the designed
system had some human related tasks and they
should be related to human with particular skill. For
this purpose, we trained some of them with necessary
courses to be capable for their roles in this system
and determine their responsibilities in the system.
Non-Human tasks Preliminary Design: the technical
(non-human) tasks of the system were specified and
the necessary technical needed to some technical
(non-human) considerations to operate well. We
obtained adequate servers, hardware and other
technical facilities for system.
Detailed Design:
This stage include: Functional Detailed Design,
Information Detailed Design, Resource Detailed
Design, Organization Detailed Design, Management
& Control Detailed Design, Human tasks Detailed
Design, and Non-Human tasks Detailed Design were
done with similar to what explained in the previous
stage. In addition of these, there were two activities
in this stage:
Software Detailed Design: the algorithm of the
software and the details of it, also the programming
language for programming user interfaces and
database query language detailed in this stage. Then
in the next stage, the software of the system
implemented with VB and query with SQL and
database designed with Microsoft-ACCESS
Hardware Detailed Design: the detail of the
hardware that are used in system is listed here. All
servers, infrastructure of network, storage devices,
input interfaces, output devices and so forth
described in this category.
Implementation:
The instructions and details of implementation of the
system were obtained. Then the program software of
the SCM IS was coded with using of VB and
ACCESS database. In addition of all, aspects of the
implementation includes: resources (human and non-
human), organization chart, output of the system,
human task and responsibilities, non-human tasks and
responsibilities and other aspects were implemented
to have a comprehensive SCM IS in our system. We
trained the necessary items to personals and arrange
the organization chart to increase capability of the
system.
Melaka, 7 – 10 December 2010
Operation:
During this stage, we are controlling, assessing,
monitoring and try to optimizing the operation of the
SCM IS in our system. This caused to improve some
of our system functions, more suitability and user
friendly and more favorite for all stakeholders of the
system.
Decommission:
At present, system is operating and continuously it
assess and redesign, improve, upgrade, maintain and
any other activities to have the best usable and most
effective system.
4. CONCLUSION
In this paper, the GERA framework is used to model
SCMISs. Our focus was on analyzing the technical
and operational aspects of the order processing with
respect to the function view, information view,
resources view, organization view, customer service
& product view, management & control view,
implementation views, software and hardware views
of the GERA framework. The framework modeling
has shown clearly the interaction and the flow of
information between the various activities. Besides,
the security issues have been highlighted and
identified. This framework model identifies the
necessary modeling tools to specify each view in the
system. Further, the framework model facilitates the
next step for implementing of the related modeling
tools, to build up the prototype software of the
SCMIS.
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 The 11th Asia Pacific Industrial Engineering and Management Systems Conference
The 14th Asia Pacific Regional Meeting of International Foundation for Production Research
Melaka, 7 – 10 December 2010

Charu Chandra & Jānis Grabis. (2007) Supply (CIM), Industrial Automation Systems & Robotics.
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES
Radwan, A. is a Professor, Dept. of Manufacturing
& Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical
Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM),
Malaysia. He received a Dr. Ing. Degree from
Norwegian University of Science and Technology,
Norway in 1989. His teaching and research interests
include Expert Systems for Industrial Engineering
Applications, Computer Integrated Manufacturing