Intelligent products: a spinal column to handle information exchanges in supply chains

This paper outlines some practical problems linked to information exchange occurring in nowadays supply chains, with a special emphasis on the aeronautical sector. The Intelligent Product paradigm is presented as an adequate solution to address some of these problems and to provide rapid gains along the whole product life-cycle. The paper intends to illustrate how the IP paradigm could bring natural solutions to historical problems in supply chains, in rupture with the way they are usually addressed. A short case study describes how the suggested concepts could help to address real problems in nowadays supply chains.