Abstract:
Transportation and warehousing logistics are activities
that require strong information systems and computer support.
This requirement has grown with the advent of e-commerce.
Companies such as FedEx and UPS now allow their customers to
track and monitor the fulfillment of their requested services on the
Internet. In order for such a system to be effective, the goods need
to be handled by the one corporation, with an integrated system.
This is rare in the case of Small to Medium sized Enterprise (SME).
With the advent of Business to Business (B2B), and Partner to
Partner (P2P) e-commerce, there has been an increasing tendency
for SMEs to set up consortia that represent several players in a
given field in order to contend with larger competitors. This paper
deals with the concept of an extended logistics enterprise and explores
the software engineering issues underlying the development
of such complex systems.
