The Expected Costs and Benefits of EDI in the Modular Supply Chain

In this paper we examine how the adoption of EDI can increase the flexibility of a modular supply chain of organisations to match customised demand, and how expected costs and benefits of such the adoption are distributed among these organisations. Within a modular supply chain, organisations form process module networks in response to customised demand. These networks indicate in what order process modules need to be operated, how they are linked to each other, and how many resources they use. We have developed the modular design approach to support the design of process module networks. By means of an automated tool, called Chain Moduling, costs and lead fimes of several designed networks can be computed and compared. The first application of Chain Moduling demonstrates how the adoption of EDI impacts a speci;fic process module network. In this paper, the approach, the tool, thejrst application andfuture research are discussed.