Américo Azevedo

Interoperability in Collaborative Networks: Independent and industry-specific initiatives - The case of the footwear industry

The development of information and communication technologies and turbulent market conditions have forced enterprises to adapt their way of undertaking business, from traditional practices to e-business. In this context, achieving seamless interoperability among heterogeneous organizations becomes a critical issue. This article has two main objectives:(1)to present a review of the most relevant approaches aiming at achieving seamless interoperability in a collaborative networked environment. In this sense, major interoperability issues (e.g., interoperability requirements, technologies) are discussed, and the most significant independent (e.g., ebXML) and industry-specific initiatives (e.g., RosettaNet, papiNet, TexWeave) are analyzed; (2)to introduce a recently developed two-layered operational infrastructure aiming at attaining seamless interoperability in the footwear industry (the up-stream segment), based on the requirements identified for this sector in a recent industry survey conducted at European level. Other relevant initiatives targeting this sector are also analyzed, emphasizing the innovative aspects and advantages of this approach.

A framework proposal for seamless interoperability in a collaborative networked environment

The advances in information and communication technologies and economic factors impelled organizations to engage in new forms of collaboration, such as collaborative networks. They require adequate frameworks, architectures, tools and platforms to support interoperability among heterogeneous and geographically distributed organizations. Despite the high number of research projects in this area, existing tools and infrastructures, this objective has not been totally achieved. The aim of this research work is to advance the research in the area of interoperability in collaborative networks. A conceptual framework towards seamless interoperability in a collaborative-competitive economic networked environment is described, which comprises six elements: (1) a messaging service; (2) a collaboration profile/agreement definition and management service; (3) five clusters of collaborative activities; (4) a centralized repository; (5) a set of business documents and a set of contracting documents; (6) a performance assessment service. The functionality of the conceptual framework proposed is illustrated with a real implementation case targeting the footwear industry. The proposed conceptual framework is then compared with relevant e-business frameworks.

Distributed planning and control systems for the virtual enterprise: organizational requirements and development life-cycle

This paper describes the requirements analysis and system specification of an Order Promise module to be used as part of a broader Decision Support System for production and operations planning of a Virtual Enterprise. This work is part of a broader project with a particular focus on the microelectronics industry which is a good example of Virtual Enterprise, and where a quick response to the customers needs and to unpredictable changes in production conditions is considered a major factor for success. First, the analysis and specification are presented within a development framework that involves the study of organizational issues of semiconductor enterprises. The use of ontological engineering for supporting the communication and shared understanding of the system concepts is explained and a virtual enterprise ontology is outlined. Following the clarification of the concept of virtual enterprise, the generic techno-organizational requirements for the information system are derived. Finally, a specification of the global planning module and a more detailed one regarding the order promise module is presented.

An advanced agent-based order planning system for dynamic networked enterprises

There is an increasing interest in exploring the opportunities for competitive advantage that arise from reinforcing core competencies and innovative capabilities of the individual companies, and by forming integrated supply networks. In complex and dynamic environments such as the automotive and semiconductor industries, managing and co-ordinating the procurement of materials, their transformation into intermediate and finished products, and the distribution to the final customers, are very demanding tasks in terms of information systems. In general, current available software packages do not provide the full support needed for networked and distributed organizations, and are clearly insufficient in what concerns the planning and coordination activities needed in these heterogeneous environments. In order to adequately tackle these problems, this work proposes a multi-agent system architecture for real-time customer-order planning in distributed manufacturing enterprises, addressing the requirements of a make-to-order environment.  The present research work resulted from the Co-OPERATE European Project. Enhanced visibility of information, early warning of disturbances, synchronized production and collaborative planning in the supply chain are the general goals of the project. In particular, for aggregate planning and order promising, a distributed and decentralized information system, based on an architecture of agents and extensively using the internet, was designed and implemented. This system aims at responding to the basic requirements of cooperativeness, integration and configurability, and at providing new and more powerful decision support.

A component-based approach to support order planning in a distributed manufacturing enterprise

Abstract Traditional Production Planning and Control systems do not successfully deal with new organisational forms of manufacturing, like production “islands”, product oriented or customer driven production. These current trends lead in practice to a strong decentralisation of production management tasks and to an “object oriented structuring” of the manufacturing process. Planning and operation in this global environment requires new skills and new approaches, namely, the co-ordination of global networks of manufacturing units and of large complex supply chains. In this paper, we present a decentralised information system designed to address the tasks of production planning that result from sales orders, originated in customers located anywhere in the world, and accomplished through a distributed manufacturing network. The system addresses the requirements of a make-to-order environment and is hopefully able to produce realistic satisfactory delivery dates. The information infrastructure designed and implemented using distributed object-oriented technology with a component based architecture has proven to be efficient and powerful, satisfying all the major tight requirements of information systems in an environment of distributed manufacturing.

Multi-Perspective Challenges on Collaborative Networks Business Environments

New forms of collaboration emerged as response to transformations of the business environment and the rapid information and communication technologies developments. In this context, collaborative networks rise as a powerful mechanism to achieve strategic objectives in a time response, quality and cost effective manner. The aim of this paper is to present the most relevant challenges concerning collaborative networks paradigm analysis, and to advance a multi-perspective approach on collaborative networks (technological, semantic, social and business perspective), emphasizing the importance of the business view that allows collaborative networks to be regarded as combinations of inter- and intra-enterprise business processes. Balance Scorecard is seen as a powerful tool which can guarantee the strategic and business goal alignment within the network.

An Innovative Framework Supporting SME Networks for Complex Product Manufacturing

Current market dynamics require European SME’s to focus on complex products manufacturing and to build non-hierarchical business networks, to assure competitiveness and sustainability. Such trend demands appropriate methods for network formation and management, including reference collaboration processes and supporting ICT tools. This paper presents a framework to support SME’s in the creation and management of non-hierarchical networks designed and developed within the European RTD project Net-Challenge. This framework includes methodologies, processes and ICT decision support tools aiming at the efficient creation and management of these networks assuring quick response times and competitive and differentiated offerings.

Order planning for networked make-to-order enterprises—a case study

From the general trend towards global markets and a growing customer orientation, new concepts and forms of organisation are emerging, such as distributed or networked enterprises. One key requirement of these new paradigms is the availability of models and tools to support order negotiation with the optimisation of manufacturing routes and logistics and ensuring the co-ordination of all participating entities. We address the problem of planning an incoming customer order to be produced in a distributed (multi-site) and multi-stage production system. In particular, we have used as a case study the industry of semiconductors (in the business area of application specific integrated circuits). The problem is tackled in a hierarchical model, in two levels: there is a global network planning procedure, and a set of local capacity models associated to the different production units reflecting their particular features. An approach based on simulated annealing is presented, as well as a specially designed constructive heuristic, that takes into account many of the real world constraints and complexities. The general performance of the simulated annealing algorithm is assessed through some preliminary computational experiments. Finally, some concluding remarks and current directions of research are presented.

Cooperative planning in dynamic supply chains

This paper describes an order planning system for dynamic supply chains, addressing the requirements of a make-to-order business environment. A distributed and decentralized information system based on an architecture of agents and extensively using the internet was designed and implemented, so as to enable new and more powerful decision support. The system aims at responding to the basic requirements of cooperativeness, integration and configurability. It was developed under the scope of the IST European Project Co-OPERATE and implements the functionality defined in the context of the ‘request feasibility studies for the network’ (ReFS) business solution.

Alignment prediction in collaborative networks

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the alignment measurement in collaborative networks, using the fit concept and predictive performance measurement as its main enablers. A performance prediction approach is used in order to control a collaborative business network based not only in present and past performance measurements of each partner, but also taking into account the future behaviour of the intra‐ and inter‐organisational processes performance.Design/methodology/approach – An exploratory case study was applied to a Brazilian collaborative network and mathematical approaches normally used in control theory were adopted to support alignment measurement.Findings – The use of predictive measurements to manage the alignment between the results of inter‐organisational processes and performance targets set by the collaborative network.Research limitations/implications – This approach was applied in a specific supply chain network, based on three industrial companies. For other network typologi...