Business-to-business communication and the requirements for an ontology for the Australian timber and wood products industry

Business-to-business communication and the requirements for an ontology for the Australian timber and wood products industry

[Executive Summary]: The purpose of this thesis is to describe business-to-business
communication and the characteristics of an open standard for electronic
communication within the Australian timber and wood products industry. The
current issues, future goals and strategies for using business-to-business
communication identified by respondents in a questionnaire are discussed.
The study addresses these questions, by using a self-administered
questionnaire which was constructed and mailed to 2000 organisations. The
questionnaire was used to ascertain a base-line of information systems’ use
in the Australian timber and wood products industry, and to establish how to
make successful the introduction of a more accessible means for system to
system interoperation between organisations.
A prototype domain specific ontology was engineered using content analysis
of a representative timber and wood product organisation product listing. A
visual representation of the ontology modelled using unified modelling
language is presented. The formal specification of the ontology was
constructed using an ontology editor, Protégé.
The outcomes of the questionnaire include that the industry has a small
number of large enterprises and a large proportion of small to medium
enterprises. Computer and Internet use in the industry is comparable to that
in other Australian industry sectors. For both intrabranch and business-to-
business the established communication modes of postal service, telephone
and facsimile are those most frequently used. However where advanced
information technology modes exist, it is used extensively. Use of electronic
data interchange is now used mostly by organisations employing over 100
employees, whereas supply chain management use is limited. Small to
medium enterprises have failed to adopt an information systems strategy
plan, while organisations employing over 100 do have plans in place.
Attitudes toward information technology, business-to-business
communication and information systems security are dependent upon
organisational size while compliance to information systems’ standards was
not. Barriers to adoption of technology specific communication identified in
the study are location, lack of resources, organisational size and a lack of
planning.
Drivers to increase the bandwagon effect in the industry are education and
the availability of a simple low-cost complete package to demystify
technology intensive electronic business-to-business communication. For
the ontology to proceed to a standard a collaborative effort must be made by
industry partners to reach consensus on an acceptable standard.