E-collaborative commerce for small- and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises

This paper describes the system which was developed as a part work of joint ERDF-DTI-funded B2B-MC project. The world of mass customisation and globalisation has forced manufacturing industry towards outsourcing of manufacturing and product development activities, resulting in the formation of synchronously operating collaborative networks. Within such collaborative environment there is a need for information and communication technology infrastructure that integrates all the processes within supply chain, right from effective collaboration with partners, bidding/gaining contract, procurement, processing to the final delivery of product. This paper presents description and discusses the components of a developed system with a scenario, which depicts innovative way of integrating existing collaborative bidding and supply chain management process within manufacturing industry.