Title: PANDA: a virtual breeding environment for SMEs in the ERP/CRM industry using a service oriented approach

Authors: Ioannis Ignatiadis, Stamatia-Ann Katriou, Adamantios Koumpis, Dimitrios Tektonidis

Addresses: Faculty of Computing, Information Systems and Mathematics, Kingston University, Surrey KT1 2EE, UK. ' ALTEC S.A. Research Programs Division, M. Kalou 6, Thessaloniki 54629, Greece. ' ALTEC S.A. Research Programs Division, M. Kalou 6, Thessaloniki 54629, Greece. ' ALTEC S.A. Research Programs Division, M. Kalou 6, Thessaloniki 54629, Greece

Abstract: PANDA is a European Union co-funded Information Society Technologies project examining innovative aspects of e-collaboration in the European enterprise resource planning/customer relationship management (ERP/CRM) industry of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). One outcome of PANDA is an advanced business-to-business (B2B) web-platform, dedicated to serving as a virtual breeding environment (VBE) for the ERP/CRM industry. PANDA introduces a system with a service-oriented architecture (SOA) approach, which includes request-based virtual organisations (RBVOs), i.e., flexible clusters reflecting international ERP/CRM value chains, comprised of ERP/CRM vendors, their national representatives, dealers and consultants. RBVOs are facilitated by a community of intelligent agents. The paper discusses the objectives of PANDA, illustrates its main concepts, briefly outlines the operations and explains the architecture of PANDA|s system.

Keywords: e-collaboration; electronic collaboration; online collaboration; request-based virtual organisations; RBVO; virtual breeding environment; VBE; service-oriented architecture; SOA; enterprise resource planning; ERP; customer relationship management; CRM; small and medium-sized enterprises; SMEs; intelligent agents; multi-agent system; MAS; agent-based systems.

DOI: 10.1504/WRSTSD.2010.032343

World Review of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development, 2010 Vol.7 No.1/2, pp.51 - 66

Published online: 31 Mar 2010 *

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