Project concept

Temporary networks or Virtual Enterprises (VE) are usually set up to dynamically respond to emerging market opportunities. The way companies react to these opportunities is critical, and their performance along the different phases of the network life-cycle (creating, managing and dissolving) is also of major importance. The approach proposed in this project is focused on the particular characteristics of SMEs, and on the requirements of higher added value segments characterized by low volume, large variety of complex and customer centred products.

The major problems when dealing with complex products in traditional manufacturing environments, are usually the long lead times that require long planning horizons and the multiplicative effects of dependent demands of product components. Small disturbances on higher level components can lead to important problems in the supply network (that is the “whip effect” can have even more impact). Furthermore, high variety and low volume requirements can considerably increase the complexity of planning and imply the need for highly flexible resource configurations.

This environment where dynamic networks of SMEs emerge to respond to market opportunities will only work in practice if companies are provided with appropriate methods for network formation and management, reference collaboration processes and supporting ICT tools, which are Net-Challenge main RTD objectives.

The proposed approach assumes that the relations between participating companies are non-hierarchical and that the decision making processes are totally decentralized. Individual companies must be able to find and receive the commitment of the required partner companies (in terms of competencies and available capacity) to respond to all potentially interesting market opportunities they are aware of in real time. SMEs will only be able to assure differentiation and long term sustainably through the ability to efficiently and effectively form these dynamic networks.

The proposed approach defines 3 main phases for the successful implementation of non-hierarchical networks of SMEs for high-variety, low-volume and complex products manufacturing:

• Phase 1: Qualification of potential partners

The first phase aims at performing information collection, publication and management to prepare the formation of dynamic networks. These activities are essential for building an environment suitable for quick formation of networks.

• Phase 2: Network formation

This phase supports the formation of networks to respond to specific market opportunities. It includes the selection of potential partners to form the network. The multiple criteria nature of this process requires a special decision support methodology, able to handle the various objectives and to produce satisfactory trade-off solutions.

• Phase 3: Operation

This phase supports all the operations required to prepare, negotiate and fulfil the specific orders resulting from an identified market opportunity (it is foreseen that a specific market opportunity may and will lead to several orders). This phase includes operations planning and control, as well as the performance management activities.

Innovative methods and collaborative processes will be specifically designed for complex and customized products because they address the most important market segments for European SMEs´ differentiation and sustainability.

Moreover, taking into account this particular environment, the proposed Decision Support Tools need to be totally distributed. Each company will be provided with the set of key ICT tools to manage its collaborative activities, to integrate with traditional legacy systems, to interface with business partners and to support decision making. These support tools will be provided in the framework of a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), providing services available able to inform business partners of their profile and available capacities and to support negotiation, order management and monitoring. The scientific methodology and approach is further defined in section B1.3.

A system architecture will be defined to be simple and affordable, and applicable to most European SMEs. Available standards and interoperability frameworks are proposed, such as TexWeave and Shoenet data models, SOA and the ebXML (Electronic Business XML–defined by United Nations and OASIS) framework.

In each company a rough capacity model is defined and updated in real time, to enable the real time information on available capacity.