Abstract:

Agreements between trading partners can be used to regulate the cooperation of organizations in a supply chain. They are typically written in a natural language which leaves room for interpretation and makes them hard to implement and enforce. Moreover they are often rudimentary so that many details have to be worked out during operation. It is therefore desirable to have a method that helps in designing more formal agreements, electronic contracts, that can improve the cooperation between partners. We suggest an approach to solve this problem based on a business-action model of the interaction between organizations in a supply chain.