Re: quote use case

Len Greski posted the interesting Request Quote use case.
I have some questions and comments:

1. Is this use case based on actual practice?
It has a realistic air about it (unlike some use cases)
but are all the details from actual practice?
If so, then I find it even more interesting.
If not, does it represent something like
desired or to-be practice?

2. You wrote that in this use case,
"the contractual relationships between Supplier and Manufacturer roles
are already in place."
I assume that means the contractual relationships
between Supplier and Buyer are *not* in place,
and the use case is the opening of contract
formation between Supplier and Buyer?

3. Jumping around a bit, you wrote,
"Need to distinguish the idea of a contract between services ... from a
legal contract."
Tony Fletcher and I collaborated on a paper about
a somewhat related use case in trying to harmonize
OASIS-Business Transaction Protocol and UN/CEFACT
Business Collaboration Protocol:
http://www.supplychainlinks.com/UNCEFACT-papers.htm
In that paper, we distinguised between:
* Economic Contracts, about commitments to exchange
economic resources, e.g. products and money; and
* Transaction Contracts, about the rules of engagement
for doing electronic commerce.
Whether you buy that terminology, the distinctions in the paper
might be useful.
Economic Commitments can be defined precisely.
Contracts can contain both Economic Commitments
as well as Transaction Contracts, which is where
the going gets muddy.

4. Getting back to the scenario,
I don't see where the Buyer accepts the Quote.
In other words, I don't see where a contract between
Buyer and Supplier is legally bound.
The Quote appears to be binding on the Supplier for some timespan,
and presumably if the Buyer accepts it they have an Economic Contract.
But not until?

5. Might the Buyer be getting quotes from many Suppliers,
and accepting the best one?

6. "The Supplier may reject one or more terms requested by the Buyer. To
handle the negotiation of terms, there may be multiple request /
response sequences between Buyer and Supplier."
Very difficult to present as a linear event sequence,
and I see that you did not try to do so.
How would you handle that negotiation?
If this use case is from actual practice,
how *do* you handle it?
There's a saying, "everything is negotiable".
I think that means in a business conversation,
every point of agreement may resolve into a negotiation.

Thanks again for an interesting use case,
Bob Haugen

Received on Thursday, 12 June 2003 09:05:40 UTC