Rosanna Fornasiero

Dynamic and collaborative business networks in the fashion industry

In order to stay competitive and avoid being smashed by large companies, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) need to establish and manage dynamic and non-hierarchical networks to respond to market opportunities, ensuring a quick response, unique products with competitive prices and high product quality. This article proposes an innovative methodological approach and ICT platform to support non-hierarchical collaboration between SMEs for customised product design and manufacturing. The ICT services are based on mapping a methodology on an open source platform in order to apply low cost solutions to SMEs. Two case studies in the fashion industry have been analysed and used to test the proposed approach for network management.

A networked engineering portal to support distributed supply chain partnership

In this paper, the authors discuss the latest advancement of supply chain management (SCM) that leads to the development of a networked supply chain partnership (SCP). A deep insight is given into the nature, motivation and implementation of the SCP as a value-added component in the forefront of SCM. The role of the Internet in SCP is examined, and the current situation of SCP in China is analysed. Compared with available e-portals in the global market, a web-based DRAGON Engineering Portal (DEP) across geographical borders and cultural barriers is proposed to support European and Chinese industrial partners in developing strategic manufacturer–supplier partnerships. E-partnering and cultural repository are in-built to support a dislocated supply chain partnership for collaborative product development, starting with the location of partners and the implementation of contact initiation.

Supply chain configurations: a model to evaluate performance in customised productions

This paper describes an approach used to evaluate the performance of different supply chain configurations in customised contexts. Based on historical data collected from the supply chain of a shoe producer, different configurations are evaluated based on a discrete-event simulation by highlighting the performance of the supply chain (in terms of supply chain order lead-time and inventory volume) when the production switched from standard production (characterised by batches of large quantities of the same product) to customised production (characterised by a small of series batches with high product variability). The simulation approach relies on experimentation through executable configurations, which enables the creation of different scenarios, and is then applied to the case of an actual firm in the footwear industry. The managerial implications of these findings are discussed.

Reference model for collaborative manufacturing of customised products: applications in the fashion industry

In the recent years, it has been confirmed both by theory and by practice that organisational models need to include networking strategies to cope with the current competitive environment. Different collaboration levels can characterise supply chains, virtual organisations (VO) and business communities; however, managing different networking scenarios is extremely important to allow SMEs to respond to market opportunities, ensuring a quick response, unique products with competitive prices and high product quality. This paper proposes an innovative methodological approach to support collaboration amongst SMEs for customised product design and manufacturing based on the VO concept. The work is based on mapping the methodology with the most important processes characterising the life of a VO and defining the operative practices to be performed within this type of network. This paper presents two case studies in the fashion industry, where the proposed approach for network management was tested and analysed.

A structured approach for customised production in SME collaborative networks

This research aims to provide a model for SMEs to address needs and expectations of specific target groups – such as elderly, obese, disabled, or diabetic persons – to customise functional and fashionable clothes and footwear of high quality, affordable price and eco-compatible. This will be achieved by the development of a new framework for the textile, clothing and footwear industry (TCFI) based on methods and tools for (co-)design, development, configuration, production, and distribution of small order quantities in collaborative networks. The aim of this paper is to describe the reference model depicting its structure and the related tools for collaborative networks enabling products to stay as long as possible digital in order to be produced on-demand.

Methodology for non-hierarchical collaboration networks for complex products manufacturing

To successfully compete in the market, European SMEs will have to adopt new business models and establish dynamic and non-hierarchical networks, assuring quick response, fast time to market, differentiated offerings and competitive prices. Sustainability will be found in high-variety and low-volume businesses, related with complex products design and manufacturing. This paper presents a Methodology concept, developed by the European project Net-Challenge, supporting SMEs in building and operating non-hierarchical business networks for complex products manufacturing with Engineer-To-Order (ETO) or Assemble-To-Order (ATO) strategies.

Collaborative Networks as a Core Enabler of Industry 4.0

The notion of Industry 4.0 is having a catalyzing effect for the integration of diverse new technologies towards a new generation of more efficient, agile, and sustainable industrial systems. From our analysis, collaboration issues are at the heart of most challenges of this movement. Therefore, an analysis of collaboration needs to be made at all dimensions of Industry 4.0 vision, complemented with a mapping of these needs to the existing results from the collaborative networks area. In addition to such mapping, some new research challenges for the collaborative networks community, as induced by Industry 4.0, are also identified.

Research Issues on Customer-Oriented and Eco-friendly Networks for Healthy Fashionable Goods

Needs and expectations of specific target groups - such as elderly, obese, disabled, or diabetic persons- are arising as challenging opportunities for European companies which are asked to supply small series of functional and fashionable goods of high quality, affordable price and eco-compatible. In order to design, develop, produce and distribute such products, a new framework and related components of collaborative networking need to be developed, enabling the product to stay as long as digital to produce on-demand. Research is necessary in many topics like: a) consumer integrated collaborative eco-oriented design, b) radical renewal by the adoption of Rapid Manufacturing technologies; and c) the overall integration and co-ordination of business processes and information exchange by a set of new (web)services for network design and ad-hoc (re-)configuration, for real-time planning, forecasting and replenishment, d) tracking and tracing of ecology and quality.

A cost evaluation approach for trucks maintenance planning

This article proposes a decision support system to improve the management of the middle-of-life phase according to product life cycle (LC) cost evaluation. A new maintenance approach integrates information gathered from different actors in order to obtain data which may impact on the whole value chain. A specific algorithm calculating residual LC costs is used for the optimisation of maintenance interventions of a fleet of trucks. The proposed system enables to create new value-transforming information into knowledge available for all LC phases and meant to support improvements in product and service quality, efficiency and sustainability. The solution described here goes in the direction of predictive maintenance for trucks aiming to reduce the number of unexpected stops and minimise product LC costs, avoiding component breakdowns.

Web cost simulation service for footwear sector

Companies, wanting to access new ICT tools, have to go through new technology acquisition. Firms in the manufacturing sector, as in our case shoe producers, increasingly have the need to improve collaboration and co-operation across the company. They are more and more interested in building networks with the support of business integrators as service providers that can offer services and tools and guarantee security standards. This study proposes a new tool, that has been developed by a service provider of the footwear sector, to support shoe producers in managing automatically through a web application the costs of their orders to compare their and other shoe producers processes and to support what-if analysis. A first prototype for such kind of service is proposed and further developments are suggested.