Supply chains are characterized by multiple firms providing their resources and processes to meeting customer demand in an efficient manner. There exists a great variety of approaches for solving the inherent coordination problem. It has been acknowledged that the autonomy of supply chain participants - and their business objectives - as well as the contractual relations between participants have to be maintained when designing a coordination mechanism. Often, new mechanisms are triggered by innovation in the software industry. This paper adopts the basic idea of Cloud Computing and takes a Cloud perspective on supply chain systems: It proposes to represent supply chains as a set of service offerings and customer demand as service requests; coordination is then a problem of determining optimal service compositions. We evaluate our proposal in a case study of airport service supply chains.

An increasing number of older adults integrate the Internet in their daily life. Although undertaking a greater range of online activities offers enhanced opportunities to live a self-determined and socially connected life, understanding of the breadth of Internet use is still limited. We address this gap by examining how individual factors representing inequalities between groups of older adults in society are associated with the breadth of their Internet use. The study analyzed survey data collected in 2017 from older adults living in a city in Germany (N = 1,136, age 65–90 years). The group of Internet users comprised of 69.0% (784) of participants, exhibited high levels of autonomy in outdoor activities (87.8%), and reported, on average, 4.92 online activities (SD = 2.31, range 1–8). Linear regression analysis showed positive associations for perceiving higher levels of behavioral control (PBC) in using digital technologies, being male and younger, and holding an academic degree. No associations were found for having medium level of education, living together with someone, and reporting better health. These findings highlight that despite the increased percentage of users, digital inequality regarding the range of online activities prevails. This inequality impedes subgroups of older adults to prepare for future situations in which online activities could substitute outdoor activities that might not be possible anymore. Interventions for these subgroups should emphasize digital skills that facilitate engagement in diverse online activities covering various purposes and life domains.