Framework for catalogues matching in procurement e-marketplaces

Supplier catalogues are important artifacts maintained by firms acting as suppliers in e-marketplaces. Catalogues are used by suppliers to define the set of products that they sell. At the same time buyers specify the items that they want to buy, which act as the catalogues in opportunities. Making the match between such catalogues will provide added-values to both suppliers and buyers. These research works is based on projects VortalWay and IMAGINE which required an extensive study in pre-award phase of procurement, where catalogues are used extensively and the selection of tender and award is made. This paper presents a formal framework for matching various catalogues originating from suppliers and buyers. At the same time this paper proposes the learning mechanism that can be used for improving the matching results based on the supplier´s behavior. This research work is supported by implementation strategy to provided added values with matching and learning engine to the e-procurement platforms in distributed environment.