A collaborative knowledge management framework for supply chains. A UML-based model approach

Nowadays, information technologies imply a strong modelling approach to support the complexities involved in the supply chain management process. Since supply chains are made up of nodes, which need to reach common agreements in order to fulfil their own requirements, the information technologies-based model is an adequate tool to support the modelling of the knowledge management process, mainly in a collaborative context. In the most general cases, collaborative activities also imply a distributed decision-making process which involves several supply chain nodes. Because collaboration in supply chains implies information exchanges among the nodes, the framework proposal is oriented to support knowledge management by considering the information sharing process as one of the main aspects. Therefore by means of a literature review and by also considering the deficiencies of existing proposals, a collaborative knowledge management UML-based framework is herein proposed which encompasses both the conceptual and general perspectives of the supply chain management process. Finally, the proposed framework summarises existing knowledge by not only fulfilling but also enriching each of its components with the modeller’s own knowledge.