E-union : a platform for communicating construction material information between E-commerce systems

Abstract

Different E-commerce systems have been developed for construction material procurement with an aim to increasing processing efficiency, reducing administrative cost, and providing information that is more comprehensive. Currently, these E-commerce systems are owned and operated by different parties like manufacturers, suppliers, agents and application services providers. Such systems are non-interoperable which means problems will be created when they are used to purchase construction materials. This thesis firstly introduces the application of E-commerce in construction material procurement, followed by discussion on problems of non-interoperable E-commerce systems and, to conclude, benefits of information sharing between them are elaborated. Two state-of-the-art information technologies, namely mobile agents and Web services, which enable information sharing between E-commerce systems, are introduced. The system architecture and functions of a prototype system (named E-Union), which utilizes Web services technology to provide information sharing between these construction material E-commerce systems, are also presented. System evaluation and future work are discussed in the last part of the thesis.