supply chain optimisation, distributed system, open architecture, online platform
Stakeholders in the wood supply chain play different roles and have different business targets, but all of them usually deal with information, served by standalone systems for one particular purpose. In this scenario, the wood supply chain is less efficient because acquiring information from others takes longer and is less standardised, than using an online information exchange platform. In order to improve efficiency in the wood supply chain, sharing information becomes the key and the web environment essentially the framework for making a fast and safe communication bridge for all stakeholders. An online information exchange platform requires an open architecture to allow third parties to connect to it, and to allow information to flow seamlessly from one stakeholder to another. Currently, there are standards that allow building an open architecture using distributed web services which provide information immediately from the stakeholders. The implemented platform connects different stakeholders through web services and shows a significant improvement in sharing information, its availability and up-to-date state of it. Having this platform in production would help the European Forest Industry to improve its competitiveness and letting them take better decision through being able to assess online the full supply chain process.