Huffman Trucking

In order for Riordan to track their products throughout all stages, for example, raw material, manufacturing and delivery it is necessary to implement an Extensible Markup Language (XML). XML is very flexible text formatted structured language that has become extremely popular for exchanging data over the Internet. With the help of XML, Riordan will not only save time and money, but they will be able to move and track their products with ease between Riordan Manufacturing, Brooks Chemical Supply, Bickford Organic Juices and Huffman Trucking.

Objectives of the XML implementation will include; creating the markup language, design a schema and testing/support. Creating a markup language involves establishing which elements and attributes are going to be used to create documents. Describing the elements and their relations are extremely important, one can either create his or her own element names or use predefined names. Document elements must be between a start and corresponding end tag. For example, This contains juice and attributes must be quoted, either by single or double quotation marks. Riordan will be using the following element names for tracking purposes; "OrderList," "Order," "PurchaseOrderNumber,” "OrderDate," "DeliveryLocation," "PickUpDate," "DeliveryDate," "TrackingNumber," "MaterialType," "MaterialID," "MaterialDescription," "QtyRequested," "QtyShipped" and "QtyBackorder."

Designing a schema is a crucial step since the design will ultimately impact how the schema is maintained or reused. Important factors that should be considered when designing or choosing a schema are; who should be able to add data, should the schema be standalone and will the schema be universal. Having a universal schema will ensure that all locations are able to share and track data throughout the supply chain, however, determining who should be able to modify data needs to be determined.

Testing will begin immediately to ensure that all stages are completed...