Advances In Networked Enterprises

Advances in Networked Enterprises

New market trends and the emergence of the so-called Internet-based `new economy' are leading companies to new forms of organization, mostly relying on privileged cooperation links. Nowadays, most manufacturing processes are not carried out by single enterprises. Rather, organizations feel the need to focus on their core competencies and join efforts with others, in order to fulfill the requirements of new products/services demanded by the global market. In a cooperative networked organization, every enterprise is just a node that adds some value to the process; namely, a step in the manufacturing/supply chain. Furthermore, manufacturing companies increasingly encompass what has typically been regarded as the domain of the service sector. They try to establish long-term relationships with their customers, in order to service their needs around a manufactured product. For these reasons, the area of virtual organizations and industrial virtual enterprises is attracting growing interest in terms of research and development, and implementation approaches for new business practices. The main emphasis of this book is on virtual enterprises and other networked organizations, with special focus on: supporting infrastructures and management of distributed business processes, intelligent multi-agent systems, knowledge management, human interfaces, and socio-economical aspects. Also included in the book are related topics on automation, both in manufacturing and transportation. Special attention is assigned to the fact that advances in information technology and new organizational paradigms will be used not only to induce new economic structures, but also to help a sustainable migration of existing systems towards the new economy. When electronic business initiatives attract such widespread attention, it is important to conciliate the `old' and `new' economies under a balanced perspective. Advances in Networked Enterprises isessential reading for researchers and engineering students in production engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, industrial sociology, and transportation, as well as for engineers and practitioners in manufacturing and transportation systems organization and planning.

Methodologies and Technologies for Networked Enterprises

The need for flexibility and globalization forces enterprises to decentralize their activities and continuously (re)structure their networks of relationships regarding both their productive "supply chains" and their design and innovation processes. The goal of the ArtDeco project, funded by the Italian Ministry of Education and Scientific Research under the FIRB program (funding for basic research), has been to address these issues by proposing solutions from three main perspectives: the organizational perspective aimed at studying how companies work in a network and how their design processes can benefit from collaboration with other companies; the informational perspective focusing on how to acquire relevant knowledge from unstructured information and processes and on how to organize and manage such knowledge; and the infrastructural perspective focusing on understanding how self-adaptive workflows and software systems can help in supporting the dynamic interconnection of enterprises. The book contains a collection of papers offering an overview of the main results produced by the ArtDeco project. It has been structured into the following four main parts: organizational issues: methodologies, empirical contexts and policies; software methodologies and technologies; knowledge elicitation and management; and management of peripheral devices. It also includes a case study used throughout the book as a reference example.

Advanced Control Strategies for Social and Economic Systems (ACS'04)