Virtualisation of information infrastructure for flexible management of value added supply chain

Supply chain information infrastructure has been largely built on the basis of solid IT backbone using static identification technology such as barcode and RFID. However, very few RFID installations can integrate seamlessly. Small to medium enterprises which do not have the same resources as large multinational corporations are often left without RFID connectivity, and hence the information link of the supply chain is broken. In this paper, a virtualisation model which allows new mobile technologies to work in parallel with the existing RFID frameworks is proposed. The concept of virtualisation is to encapsulate a physical device to behave as multiple devices where the resources of the physical device are shared among the virtual devices. The new system capability is supplemented by the development of a GPS based virtualised identification technology “geo-fence”. This paper also describes the application of the virtualised infrastructure for wharf cartage operations on empty containers movement.