Research on enterprise interoperability for cluster supply chain

Cluster supply chain is a kind of supply chain coupling with the industrial cluster, and enterprises within this region, cooperating with others frequently, are in urgent need to promote the efficiency of business cooperation by means of system interoperation, which is now seriously impeded by the high heterogeneity of the data model and system among the enterprises. Under such circumstances, we study the requirements of enterprise interoperability for the cluster supply chain by analyzing the characteristics of cluster supply chain and the complex business relationships in it. A framework of enterprise interoperability for cluster supply chain is presented to give global description of the needs. After that, based on the framework, a three-step solution of enterprise interoperability is proposed, through realizing interoperability of each layer to support the business collaboration among the enterprises. In our solution, semantic mapping based on mixed ontologies is utilized to resolve the syntax and semantic differences, and Web service is employed to ensure interoperability and manageability. Due to the high flexibility and sematic enhancement of the service, the dynamic inter-enterprise business process is satisfied by the combination of services. Finally, a SOA-based platform is developed in accord with the proposed solution and the experimental results prove its practicability and effectiveness.