An internet-based logistics management system for enterprise chainsN. Prindezis, C.T. KiranoudisSchool of Chemical Engineering, National Technical University, 15780 Athens, GreeceReceived 13 September 2003; received in revised form 20 December 2003; accepted 27 January 2004Available online 10 December 2004 .Developing the internet-based application toolWeb services offer new opportunities in business landscape, facilitating a global marketplace where business rapidly create innovative products and serve customers better. Whatever that business needs is, Web services have the flexibility to meet the demand and allow to accelerate outsourcing. In turn, the developer can focus on building core competencies to create customer and shareholder value. Application development is also more efficient because existing Web services, regardless of where they were developed, can easily be reused.Many of the technology requirements for Web services exist today, such as open standards for business to-business applications, mission-critical transaction platforms and secure integration and messaging products. However, to enable robust and dynamic integration of applications, the industry standards and tools that extend the capabilities of to days business-to-business interoperability are required. The key to taking full advantage of Web services is to understand what Web services are and how the market is likely to evolve. One needs to be able to invest in platforms and applications today that will enable the developer to quickly and effectively realize these benefits as well as to be able to meet the specific needs and increase business productivity.Typically, there are two basic technologies to be implemented when dealing with internet-based applications; namely server-based and client-based. Both technologieshave their strong points regarding development of the code and the facilities they provide. Server-based applications involve the development of dynamically created web pages. These pages are transmitted to the web browser of the client and contain code in the form of HTML and JAVASCRIPT language. The HTML part is the static part of the page that contains forms and controls for user needs and the JAVASCRIPT part is the dynamic part of the page. Typically, the structure of the code can be completely changed through the intervention of web server mechanisms added on thetransmission part and implemented by server-based languages such as ASP, JSP, PHP, etc. This comes to the development of an integrated dynamic page application where user desire regarding problem peculiarities (calculating shortest paths, execute routing algorithms, transact with the database, etc.) is implemented by appropriately invoking different parts of the dynamic content of such pages. In server-based applications allcalculations are executed on the server. In client-based applications, JAVA applets prevail. Communication of the user is guaranteed by the well-known JAVA mechanism that acts as the medium between the user and code.Everything is executed on the client side. Data in this case have to be retrieved, once and this might be the time-consuming part of the transaction.In server-based applications, server resources are used for all calculations and this requires powerful server facilities with respect to hardware and software. Client-based applications are burdened with data transmission (chiefly related to road network data). There is a remedy to that; namely caching. Once loaded, they are left in the cache archives of the web browser to be instantly recalled when needed.In our case, a client-based application was developed. The main reason was the demand from the users point of view for personal data discretion regarding their clients. In fact, this information was kept secret in our system even from the server side involved.Data management plays major role in the good function of our system. This role becomes more substantial when the distribution takes place within a large and detailed road network like this of a major complex city. More specifically, in order to produce the proposed the routing plan, the system uses information about:l the locations of the depot and the customers within the road network of the city (their co-ordinates attached in the map of the city),l the demand of the customers serviced,l the capacity of the vehicles used,l the spatial characteristics of road segments of the net work examined,l the topography of the road network,l the speed of the vehicle, considering the spatial characteristics of the road and the area within of which is moved,l the synthesis of the company fleet of vehicles.Consequently, the system combines, in real time, the available spatial characteristics with all other information mentioned above, and tools for modelling, spatial, non-spatial, and statistical analysis, image processing forming a scalable, extensible and interop