Information Exchange and Synchronized Scheduling in the Supply Chain

A supply chain encompasses several agents, such as vendors, wholesalers, manufacturers, retailers and customers. These companies must share information and coordinate physical execution to ensure a smooth flow of goods, services, information, and cash through the pipeline. Collaboration among entities in the supply chain can have a positive impact on the system performance. In this context, the incorporation of collaborative capabilities to manufacturing systems planning and scheduling is an important part of any enterprise integration effort. Integrated scheduling systems describe procedures to review and coordinate production scheduling in supply chain management. The ability to develop effective collaborative scheduling procedures in the extended enterprise is expected to become a key to success in the market.