22 AeroWEB: An information infrastructure for the supply chain J Mills, M Brand, R. Elmasri The Automation & Robotics Research Institute, The University ofTexas at Arlington 7300 Jack Newell Blvd. S. Fort Worth, TX 76118 Phone (817) 272-5900 Fax (817) 272-5952 {jmills, relmasri, mbrand}@arri.uta.edu Abstract Information flow up and down the supply chain, particularly for complex products such as automobiles, aircraft, and weapons systems is complex, difficult, fraught with errors and time consuming. In the defense business, for example, just the engineering trade-off process in the conceptual design phase can take up to a year before all the information requested is available for the design engineering team to compare alternatives (Schwart97). Some of the problems encountered include the inability of small suppliers far down the chain to access technical data created with CAD systems to which they do not have access, inaccurate or wrong versions of technical data when the supplier eventually obtains it, and difficulty in contacting people to request clarification. EDI and geometric modeling standards (e.g. STEP) and Email have started to address these problems, but they do not address all of them. Email, for instance often results in huge CAD files bogging down a suppliers email system (often using a dial up modem) only to have it discarded because it was not appropriate to their business. EDI/EC and STEP standards focus on standards for the exchange and sharing of data, not on their smooth and efficient movement up and down the chain. A new approach is proposed which has the potential to eliminate or minimize many of these problems. Based on the Systems Integration Architecture described elsewhere (Mills95aa, Mills96), it uses the concepts of Distributed Object computing, remote computing, Internet access, X-Windows, references and associations to facilitate (a) access to remote applications and data and (b) the flow of information up and down the supply chain. Details of SIA and an application of it, called Aero WEB, to the problems described above are presented. Keywords Information infrastructure, virtual enterprises, supply chain J. J. Mills et al. (eds.), Information Infrastructure Systems for Manufacturing II © Springer Science+Business Media New York 1999