respect to criterion C
UNPEMq
, the A
UNPEMq
has the reciprocal
value (S
UNPEMqsp
) when compared to C
UNPEMps
.
4. Set up supplier comparison, this process is identical to the
procedure used to develop the criteria comparison matrix.
The only difference is that there is a supplier comparison
matrix for each criterion. Therefore, the decision maker
compares each pair of suppliers with respect to the tangible
criterion, and all suppliers must be compared pair-wise for
each criterion. The decision maker uses own personal
judgement to make the requi red pair-wise comparisons ,
compares each pair of suppliers with respect to the tangible
criterion. This is repeated for the whole criteria, and all
suppliers must be compared pair-wise for each criterion.
5. Calculate the final results according to the rating marks from
criteria and supplier comparison respectively. This is
constructed by using the relative importance of the
alternatives in terms of each criterion, nam ely, the CA
matrix as shown in Table 1 (where C is the number of criteria
and A is the number of alternative), and the results of these
multiplications are added together to compute the final
scores. According to Satty, the best supplier alternative is the
one that satisfies the following expression:
SUNPEM ¼ max
X
N
j¼1
UNPEMij W j; i ¼ 1; 2; 3 ; ...
where N is the number of decision crite ria, UNPEMij is the
actual value of the ith alternative in terms of the jth criterion
under the unique focus strategy with the development direc-
tion of new product in an existing market, and Wj is the
weight of importance of the jth criterion. The sum of
SUNPEM is equal to one. In this case, the greater scores
of suppliers, the better is a potential supplier under that
condition.
The relative importance of the supplier selection factors will
depend upon the strategies with product market position which
the decision marker is pursuing. When a decision marker
pursues a unique focus strategy, for example, strong R&D, high
quality and technical capability may be more important than
price, delivery and location. Conversely, a decision marker
would probably emphasize price and location more than the
other factors if the Cost focus strategy is pursued. Taking the
NPEM and the EPNM matrices with an example to illustrate the
procedures above will be shown in Section 4.
2.4. Web-based technology utilized in the system
Lack of interoperability is a vital bottleneck for many Web-
based systems. In order to enhance the capability of this
supplier selection system, it is necessary to utilize the state of
the art Web-based technology to develop a heterogeneous
environment for people who are involved in the process of
supplier selection . Web Services and J2EE technologies have
been chosen to implement the system.
Web Services technology was developed and widely
supported by many major high–tech vendors, such as IBM,
Sun Microsystems and BEA Systems [30–32]. It has been
considered as an excellent technology to solve distributed
computing challenges for manufacture in the Internet area. The
Web Services can take the advantages of distributed operating
systems and use computing power efficiently and cooperatively.
It provides a user-centric computing environment that integrates
multiple applications running on various operating systems
behind the corporate firewall. [29–32]. The Extensible Markup
Language (XML), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOA), Web
Services Description Language(WSDL) and Universal Descrip-
tion, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) standards form the
backbone of Web Services technology [29–32].
Due to concurrency, consistency, reliability, security and
distribution issues, it is crucial to apply right technologies for
the Web Services implementation. The JavaTM 2 Platform,
Enterprise Edition (J2EETM) provides architecture for
distributed enterprise appl ications. As the member of the
J2EE family, several middle-tier technologies included
Servelts, JavaServer Pages(JSPs), and Enterprise JavaBean-
s(EJBs) have been utilized in the implementation of this Web
Sevices-based supplier selection system [29–35].
3. The WMPSS system
3.1. System overview
The system contains two major parts: Reference system and
CSPMP (competitive strategies with product market positions)
matrices. The purpose of this system is to aid manufacturers to
effectively make decision for supplie r selection and strengthen
collaboration between people of all functions who are involved
in the procedure of product development. The system breaks
the barriers between geographically dispersed teams and
partners who are using incompatible computing languages and
equipment, which enables firms to be flexible identify and to
efficiently shift their business or production directions under
the turbulent external environment. This will enhance
manufacturers’ efficiency and flexibility, and allow them to
avoid or minimize risk when external conditions change . The
main features of this system different from existing supplier
selection systems are: (1) the ability to access and evaluate
suppliers’ information immediately regardless of geographic
location or IT infrastructure, this is achieved by combination of
Web Services with J2EE technology which enable the system to
have following features: scalability, heterogeneity and reusa-
bility; (2) based on the survey results, twelve pre-defined
matrices that integrate CSPMP to help firms to adjust their
direction in a strategic and reliable manner; (3) an accurate and
reliable comparison and assessment of suppliers based on the
pre-defined matrices, AHP approach and Web-enabled tech-
nologies, and (4) the ability to effectively take various business
strategies and product market positions into consideration.
The working procedure shown in Fig. 1 is operated within
the Web Services oriented environment. Team members play
different roles in the process of product design; each of them is
a specialist in one or more areas, they may located dispersedly
with different privilege o f accessing the supplier selection
J. Hou, D. Su / Computers in Industry xxx (2006) xxx–xxx4
+ Models
COMIND-1922; No of Pages 12
Please cite this article as: Jiachen Hou, Daizhong Su, Integration of Web Services technology with business models within the total product
design process for supplier selection, Computers in Industry (2006), doi:10.1016/j.compind.2006.04.008
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