Extended enterprise partnerships

World wide advances in manufacturing, physical distribution, retailing and information and communication technologies have created important opportunities for advances in management of the extended supply chain. Modern industrial supply chains operate as multipartner networks (extended logistics networks) of retailers, manufacturing distributors and supplier enterprises. Such chains now have to respond to the conflicting demands of improved customer service, just-in-time delivery, reduced inventory and working capital, elimination of spare capacity and faster response to market. ESPRIT Project 65991 EAGLE aims to provide the basis for a new generation of decision-support systems that improve service levels, response times and profitability by ensuring the delivery of cost-effective quantities of all products needed at the right time and place throughout the manufacturing logistics network