Steel Transportation Management Platform Based On Saas Model Design And Realization

Small enterprises serving as third party logistics providers for steel products logistics management, due to scale limitation, do not have enough capital and human resources investment on their IT infrastructure. Research projects have been carried out on how to manage these companies' business efficiently using the IT systems with the advanced technology; and how to effectively exchange data/information with customers'(the cargo owners) ERP system. This article discusses in details about the above topics. Based on the studies on the business behavior of the third party logistics providers of the steel trading companies which are Baosteel Corporation's subsidiaries all over the country, with the SaaS (Software as a Service) concept in head, the article focuses on development of a steel products transport management SaaS platform to support multiple enterprises with the.NET technology. As an independent system, the tenants who use the platform can get the same functionality as provided by their own internal-used transport management system, but by using the platform it saves huge expenditures on hardware purchasing, continuous maintenance and technical support cost. It reduces the risk in implementation of IT infrastructure. Moreover, it makes it possible for information sharing and data exchange among the subsidiaries in different geographical locations.This article first introduces the background and current research status in this field and gives a brief analysis and summary on the prevailing practice of both domestic and overseas companies. Then it explains the SaaS model concept and the software application architecture knowledge and technology it relates, followed by the elaboration on software engineering procedures, including the requirement analysis, system design and implementation. The major topics are 1) the advantage analysis to employ the SaaS model and pattern; 2) SaaS platform architecture design and technology used by SaaS platform; 3) functional and implementation design; 4) interface design for external ERP system; 5) system scalability design and system security management; and load-balancing technology, etc. The last section of this article is a summary and discussion which talks a bit more about the future development of the platform and potential technology it could use.