A Planning and Scheduling Methodology for the Virtual Enterprise

Virtual enterprises consisting of geographically dispersed, independent units are a reality in the global economy. These units concentrate on core technologies and create partner networks for the design, manufacturing and sale of their products. This chapter documents a methodology, more flexible and efficient than the more traditional techniques, to schedule activities in virtual enterprises and enterprise networks. The presented technique that stepwise searches for improved activity schedules has the advantage that in any stage of the iteration process a resource-feasible schedule is available. Investing in network and computation capacity will result in more efficient schedules. The virtual enterprise unit will view the platform as a time-phased capacity trading marketplace.

Applying a Core Competencies Approach in Virtual Enterprise Formation

The process of core competencies identification has been incorporated by the enterprises within strategic planning. The virtual enterprise, which is a form of cooperation between enterprises, is one of the most benefited with this new process, mainly in its formation stage. The identified core competencies, which are deployed in products, process and technology, may support a more agile gathering of the virtual enterprise partners. This chapter presents a method to identify core competencies, supported by a practical case of successful virtual enterprise formation, where the method was applied and validated.

A Survey of Distributed Information Management Approaches for Virtual Enterprise Infrastructures

The support of real collaborative virtual enterprise (VE) scenarios sets forward particularly interesting challenges in terms of distributed information management, regarding the proper sharing and exchange of information among preexisting autonomous enterprises. In order to address these challenges, it is necessary to achieve a comprehensive analysis of advanced information management approaches that can be applied in VE platforms. In this context, this chapter provides a representative survey of several VE-related information management standards, technologies, and existing approaches that can be applied to support future VE infrastructures.

Value Webs

The new information infrastructure redefines the roles and relationships between buyer, seller, and middleman, allowing new ways of accessing and tapping information and price arrangements. Most importantly information about a product or service may be separated from the product or service itself. The chapter scrutinizes how companies are using these opportunities to establish networked retail businesses and generate customer value in innovative ways. We have tried to reconstruct a widespread interorganizational arrangement for product and service retailing on the Web, its antecedents, its challenges and its economic logic.

The Virtual Corporation and Trust

Virtual corporations are seen as new organisational forms to ensure knowledge sharing and innovation. In this chapter the reason for the knowledge-creating competence of virtual corporations is explained. A shared identity and mutual trust of the participants are of paramount importance to innovation. Virtual corporations are in fact balancing on a tightrope. They have to create an identity which is strong enough for the participants to trust each other. At the same time the identity shared by the participants of the virtual corporation must not become so strong that very promising innovative avenues are blocked. ICT will fulfil an important function here which is mainly aimed at the support of the social relation between the participants.

Evaluating the Success of Virtual Corporations With CONECT

A fundamental condition precedent to strategic decisions of virtual corporations and their partners is a profound knowledge of the cooperation’s success. This paper discusses different evaluation methods and elaborates a specific technique for multidimensional appraisals of success. It reports the first outcomes and implications of its practical use at a consultancy network.

The Virtual Web-Based Supply Chain

The virtual Web-based supply chain is emerging as a new form of industrial organization. This paper discusses the concept as a juncture of three forces: the virtual organization, Web-based communication and the application service provider (ASP). The virtual organization is a familiar concept in many industries, even without electronic connections. Web-based communication provides access and networks with new institutions. The ASP makes rapid change and flexible connections feasible. Together they establish focus, flexibility and rapid response to change in demand and customer requirements. Casting it in a strategic framework of structure, process and organization provides a basis for projecting its future.

The Metamorphosis to Dynamic Trading Networks and Virtual Corporations

A process of turbulent change is taking place in which companies shape up to deal with the unremitting global competition for which there is an uncertain outcome. Businesses have to look at the wider horizons and dynamics of both their supply chains and markets to discover new ways of working with both customers and suppliers to grow and remain viable. The diverse industrial, commercial and operational practices and processes need to be remolded and target the collaborative aspects of relationships to the advantage of company performance and creation of new opportunities. This chapter outlines some of the constraining forces and suggests the parameters in which a business strategy and a course of action can be devised as a pathway to the future.

Managing Dynamic Virtual Enterprises Using FIPA Agents

Virtual enterprises (VEs) enable the deployment of distributed business processes among different partners in order to shorten development and manufacturing cycles, reduce time to market and operational costs, increase customer satisfaction, and operate on global scale and reach. Dynamic virtual enterprises are an emerging category of VE where the different partners are being selected dynamically during business process execution based on market-driven criteria and negotiation. In this chapter, we present an agent-based platform for the management of dynamic VEs. The main contributions of this approach are the distributed, autonomous agent-based business process management, the XML-based business process definition language, the flexible ontologies, and the dynamic negotiation and selection of partners based on virtual marketplaces. The presented platform has been fully developed using emerging agent and Internet standards like FIPA, MASIF, and XML.

Networks of SMEs as Virtual Web Organizations

ENEA, the Italian public institution for research on energy, new technologies and environment, is conducting a program aimed at supporting networks of small-medium enterprises (SMEs) in depressed regions of Italy. The program focuses on the experimentation of a business model for these networks and on the introduction of advanced tools and methods, mostly of concurrent engineering. The business model, developed within the program, has the basic features of a virtual Web organization. This chapter illustrates the organizational and functional model that has been defined in the framework of a cooperation between ENEA and the SMEs involved in the research program.