TR173: A Distributed Portal-Based Platform for Engineering & Construction Supply Chain Interoperability

Collaboration and interoperability plays a very significant role in a construction supply
chain. The lack of information sharing and software interoperability hampers
coordination and collaboration among project participants, which are crucial to the
success of a supply chain. As the Internet becomes ubiquitous and instantaneously
accessible, the web services model has emerged as a promising approach to support
supply chain collaboration and achieve interoperability. This report discusses a web
service framework to connect, invoke and integrate loosely coupled, heterogeneous
information sources and software applications. Specifically, web portal technology is
leveraged to implement the web services platform and to provide a robust and
customizable user interface. The issues of information ownership rights and proprietary
privacy may hinder information sharing among companies in a centralized portal system.
A decentralized portal network architecture is introduced to promote sharing of
information and to enable distributed computing. This report presents the prototype webbased platform, SC Collaborator, that is designed to support data exchange, information
sharing and supply chain collaboration. The platform leverages open source technologies
and implements the proposed distributed portal network architecture. Two example
scenarios are included to demonstrate the potential of the SC Collaborator system in
managing information flows in AEC activities and facilitating interoperability.