A Sophistication Framework for a Mother Company-Driven Global Manufacturing Network

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to propose a sophistication framework for a global manufacturing network (GMN) driven by a mother company to autonomously propagate and coordinate transaction data that are exchanged among manufacturing partners. The framework is based on conceptual fundamentals of previous research that provide a step toward ultimate successful collaboration in the supply chain and employs mobile agents for the coordination and propagation of transaction data. Maintaining the integrity of transaction data linked to a huge information web is difficult. With the sophistication functionalities of this framework, it becomes easy to effectively control the overall GMN operations and to accomplish the intended goals. The current level of sophistication focuses on the transaction data propagation. The sophistication level may be expanded up to business intelligence in the future.