Distributed Hypertext Approach to Procurement Processes
Distributed Hypertext Approach to Procurement Processes
John Noll and Walt Scacchi,
ATRIUM Laboratory,
School of Business Administration,
University of Southern California,
Los Angeles, CA 90089-1421 USA,
(213) 740-4782, (213) 740-8494 FAX.
Process Enactment
- Guidance
- Monitoring
- Control
Problem: representation
Solution: Distributed Hypertext Technology
Semantic Hypertext:
- Dynamic, external, executable links.
- Process enactment (execution) through browsing.
Example: ``Terms and Conditions'' process
Problem: connecting tasks to resources
Solution: dynamic ``available task'' links
Problem: resource heterogeneity
Process enactment takes place in legacy environments.
- Data Model
- Schema
- Naming
- Format
- Storage Manager
Resource Heterogeneity
Problem: organizations and resources are distributed
The Conventional Process Environment Architecture
The Virtual Enterprise
Research Agenda
- Articulator to Hypertext Transformer
- Task Node generation
- User interface: Netscape and Java; text and 3-D Virtual Reality
- Monitoring links
Conclusion
DHT addresses the spectrum of integration from
the user's view to access to individual repositories, using a single,
consistent approach.