Trading E-Coalition Modeling for Supply Chain

Abstract

As the Internet grew and evolved, it became more widely used by everyone. What once was utilized by the military and used for academic purposes is now employed by companies for e-business marketing strategies and alliances in the supply chain. Historically, companies have found many ways to work together, playing different roles with regard to manufacturing, supplying, selling, delivering, and buying in the supply chain. Most of the time, according to role, members of each company get together in a shared space (i.e., marketplace) to work on a particular project (i.e., delivering quality goods or services to customers). The emergence of the Internet has brought an appropriate media to expand markets and enable collaboration with partners in all stages of product manufacturing, testing, and delivering through electronic commerce. Support for these collaborations over the Internet, called e-coalition here, is what this chapter is about.