El estudio de la relación Humano-Medio Ambiente

The artifact was designed by drawing concrete design decisions (DD) from the two design principles, which were incorporated with corresponding features into the functional software artifact. In several design iterations in the DSR team in phases 1 and 3, covering the quote-to-invoice and the supplier qualification use case respectively, preliminary design decisions have been deducted, implemented, tested and revised to finally converge towards the final design decisions, converting the design principles into tangible features of the B-Zone artifact. The artifact thus maps the complete quote- to-invoice and supplier qualification use case, from initial contact between supplier and buyer to a well-established relationship between them in the ‘business partner’ stage, and the actual executions of quotes, orders, goods movements and invoices. This includes capabilities covering structured as well as unstructured data and processes. DD1 ‘status evolvement of n-BOs’ refers to the evolutionary aspect of the status evolvement of networked business objects. In the supplier qualification use case, this involves the status sequence from initial contact, to prospect, to candidate and finally to business partner (see Figure 12). This goes hand-in-hand with increasing access rights to data attributes and the option of including a business partner in structured processes, like order or contract collaboration. In the quote-to-invoice use case, this covers the status evolvement from quote, to order, to goods issue/receiving and finally to invoice (see Figure 11).

DD2 ‘transparency and consistency of data for all involved business partners’ highlights the key design decision related to DP1 that business partners involved in structured business processes and who are sharing structured data should have a common view of the same data according to their access rights, to any point in time. There is no delay in updating certain business object data and documents, nor in them becoming visible to all affected business partners. When the general shipment location of a business partners is changed by the supplier for example, all affected buyers and service providers are notified and have immediate access to the new conditions stored in an n-BO of type BUSINESS PARTNER.

With DD3 ‘business templates for embedding of structured data and processes’, used to tightly bundle unstructured and structured data/processes, business templates that are accessible in business template pools are proposed, which define the structured data set and entry fields according to the state of the actual unstructured people interaction. When for example the communication between buyer and potential supplier via (instant) messaging arrives at the stage where the supply qualities, standards, incoterms etc. need to be exchanged, the business partners could select or define a business template to enter the necessary structured data. Business templates can be pre-defined by the supply network provider(s) and not modifiable, created by supply network

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professionals, extended by supply network professionals or from external sources like partners of the supply network provider(s).

With DD4 ‘contact recommendation, ad-hoc and advanced search, administration’, the artifact is able to provide contact recommendations based on previous supply activities that the vendor performed for other connected business partners. It should be possible for example that the system in real time to propose suitable business partners when a request for quotation is created or a contract is defined, based on the semantic match between the specification of the n-BO and the network history of business partners. The proposal can be selected from a dynamic ranking list. This also includes advanced ad- hoc and extended search capabilities (‘and’, ‘or‘, ‘not’, phrase search) for persons, contexts, projects, items and so on, as well as administration and status management capabilities for connected business partners.

DD5 ‘asynchronous and synchronous (instant) messages’ allows users to create instant or mail messages, (micro) blogs, chat entries etc. with selected partners or to the complete personal supply network of connected business partners.

Similarly, with DD6 ‘news feeds and watch-list alerts’, users can integrate various news feed channels, from supply management forums and public social networks for instance, or to define personal watch-lists to be automatically notified when certain events or price changes occur for particular products of interest. In this context, it is also possible to broadcast actual news relevant to the complete supply network or to a selected subset of connected business partners. Also of importance in this context is the possibility to search in and filter the current personal feed, for instance to filter only for business relevant information, structured (n-BO creation or status changes) or only unstructured status updates etc.

Finally, DD7 ‘social connections between business partners with various stages’ allows the supply network user to connect to business contacts continuously. After acceptance by the new business contact, current news feeds or messages can be received when connected partners broadcast news, instant messages or blogs, or update certain important structured supply documents. Dependent on the connection stage (contact, prospect, candidate or business partner) more business partner data is shared and more extended supply network use cases can be performed.

Table 11 summarizes the design decisions and the interrelation to the DPs they are derived from.

Principle(s) (DP)

DD1: Status evolvement of n-BOs DP1

DD2: Transparency and consistency of data for all involved business partners

DP1 DD3: Business templates for embedding of structured data and

processes

DP1, DP2 DD4: Contact recommendation, ad-hoc and advanced search,

administration

DP2 DD5: Asynchronous and synchronous (instant) messages DP2

DD6: News feeds and watch-list alerts DP2

DD7: Social connections between business partners with various stages DP2

Table 11. Design Decisions derived from Design Principles