Virtual Enterprise Environment Research Articles

Target training of technologists in a virtual enterprise environment

The article discusses the project personnel’s problems of CAD training integrated into complex automated systems. To accelerate adaptation and development of CAD skills among users of CAD systems in a digital design and production environment, specialized educational and research virtual enterprises (ERVEs) are created. The target training of engineering technologists is considered in detail. The structure and composition of means of informational and methodological support of ERVEs are substantiated. The use of ontological analysis for constructing optimum trajectories for training specialists in a virtual educational environment is proposed.

Ba virtual and inter-organizational evolution: a case study from a EU research project

Purpose Taking Nonaka’s SECI model as the main reference, this paper aims to offer reflections on the virtual evolution of ba, the places for knowledge creation. Indeed, looking at the current scenario, widening the knowledge spiral to the inter-organizational epistemological level is inevitable. To this aim, information technology tools and virtual communities can establish effective interactions to exchange knowledge, making ba evolve congruently. Design/methodology/approach The paper takes the exemplary case of a platform developed during a European research project called “BIVEE: Business Innovation in Virtual Enterprise Environments”. The investigative approach chosen is participatory action research (PAR), with two researchers conducting PAR in real time, and two others involved ex post. Findings The paper shows that the virtual evolution of ba can lead the SECI model towards an inter-organizational level. Moreover, through a learning history, it describes how all the phases of the SECI process, even the Socialization one, can take place or be supported in virtual spaces. Research limitations/implications Taking into account just one single exemplary case study provides a rich, contextualized understanding of phenomena, while allowing only some theoretical generalizations. Originality/value This paper contextualizes the SECI model within a Web platform for open innovation, to investigate whether the knowledge creation process can take place entirely within a virtual environment linking subjects from different organizations. In so doing, it applies the SECI model to the phases of the innovation process, called waves.

Framework for Manufacturing Servitization in Virtual Enterprise Environment and Ecosystem

Manufacturing servitization is considered in Europe as one of the important developments in the years to come to allow European industries improving its competitiveness in the market. This paper presents a framework to support manufacturing companies accessing and determining its strategy and objective in a manufacturing servitization project. The framework is elaborated within the frame of a FP7 European Integrated Project ‘MSEE’. Basic concepts and notions relating to the servitization will be first presented. Then various dimensions that constitute the framework will be detailed. The three dimensional framework will be presented and examples to illustrate the use of the framework will be outlined. Conclusions are given in the end of the paper 1.

Knowledge Applications Development at the SMEs Level in a Virtual Business Environment

The paper presents the implementation and usage of a Knowledge Management (KM) system for an industrial holding of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). It pursues the application of service oriented architecture to business interaction across collaborative SMEs in virtual enterprise environment. The work analyses the KM system and proposes a KM scenario to support knowledge applications (KApps) development in SMEs. The core components are described and evaluated from a real organization perspective. It is proposed the informational and communication infrastructure and the procedure of partner selection based on KApps in an industrial holding organized by a dynamic alliance of SMEs.

An agent-based peer-to-peer architecture for semantic discovery of manufacturing services across virtual enterprises

With the development of virtual enterprise (VE) paradigm, the usage of serviceoriented architecture (SOA) is increasingly being considered for facilitating the integration and utilisation of distributed manufacturing resources. However, due to the heterogeneous nature among VEs, the dynamic nature of a VE and the autonomous nature of each VE member, the lack of both sophisticated coordination mechanism in the popular centralised infrastructure and semantic expressivity in the existing SOA standards make the current centralised, syntactic service discovery method undesirable. This motivates the proposed agent-based peer-to-peer (P2P) architecture for semantic discovery of manufacturing services across VEs. Multi-agent technology provides autonomous and flexible problemsolving capabilities in dynamic and adaptive VE environments. Peer-to-peer overlay provides highly scalable coupling across decentralised VEs, each of which exhibiting as a peer composed of multiple agents dealing with manufacturing services. The proposed architecture utilises a novel, efficient, two-stage search strategy – semantic peer discovery and semantic service discovery – to handle the complex searches of manufacturing services across VEs through fast peer filtering. The operation and experimental evaluation of the prototype system are presented to validate the implementation of the proposed approach.

Datastores in Cloud Governance

The Small and Medium Enterprises benefit now, due to the scale adoption of Cloud Computing, from an emerging market where they can associate and collaborate to form virtual enterprises or virtual clusters, aiming to compete with the large enterprises and provide tailored IT solutions for their customers. However the lack of standardization for the cloud services and technologies leads to a myriad of different components that cannot be easily set to work together in the absence of a real cloud governance solution. Cloud governance acts like a catalyst to allow Small and Medium Enterprises to easily manage and optimize their services infrastructure, and to facilitate collaboration in a clustered or virtual-enterprise environment. We have proposed a Cloud Governance architecture based on mOSAIC’s multi-agent Cloud Management solution. The Cloud Governance solution relies on various datastores that are responsible with maintaining and managing a set of crucial data that are used during the cloud governance process . Our paper is focused to analyze and emphasize the requirements that must be fulfilled by different database systems in order to have a reliable storage system and also to suggest a concrete solution.

A Multiswarm Optimizer for Distributed Decision Making in Virtual Enterprise Risk Management

We develop an optimization model for risk management in a virtual enterprise environment based on a novel multiswarm particle swarm optimizer called PS2O. The main idea of PS2O is to extend the single population PSO to the interacting multiswarms model by constructing hierarchical interaction topology and enhanced dynamical update equations. With the hierarchical interaction topology, a suitable diversity in the whole population can be maintained. At the same time, the enhanced dynamical update rule significantly speeds up the multiswarm to converge to the global optimum. With five mathematical benchmark functions, PS2O is proved to have considerable potential for solving complex optimization problems. PS2O is then applied to risk management in a virtual enterprise environment. Simulation results demonstrate that the PS2O algorithm is more feasible and efficient than the PSO algorithm in solving this real‐world problem.

ONTOLOGY-BASED DISTRIBUTED CASE-BASED REASONING IN VIRTUAL ENTERPRISES

Given the advent of knowledge-based economies and virtual-enterprise business models, enterprises get the knowledge not only from themselves but also from others. Distributed case-based reasoning systems (DCBRS) play important roles in knowledge-driven virtual enterprises by supporting knowledge sharing. This study develops a novel mechanism for ontology-based distributed case-based reasoning using ontology and a proposed multistage algorithm to effectively support knowledge sharing within a virtual enterprise environment. Tasks involved in this study are as follows: (i) design an ontology-based distributed case-based reasoning architecture and procedure, (ii) develop techniques related to the ontology-based distributed case-based reasoning, and (iii) implement an ontology-based distributed case-based reasoning mechanism. Developing methods associated with ontology-based distributed case-based reasoning involves the definition and representation of a user query model, definition and representation of a knowledge case model, definition and establishment of knowledge case index structure, and development of a distributed knowledge case retrieval and knowledge case adaptation methods. Study results will facilitate heterogeneous knowledge sharing among enterprises participating in a virtual enterprise.

The role of Bill of Materials and Movements (BOMM) in the virtual enterprises environment

Organizing and managing dynamic networks of enterprises (or virtual enterprises (VE)) is a very complex task and many issues are still to be effectively covered. Apart from the models that can be used to create and manage VEs, product data play a central role in the VE life cycle. VE composition, interaction among VE members (Autonomous Production Systems in this work), as well as its relationship with the market, is severely dependent on the product technical specifications as well as on the product process planning information. In traditional managing systems for the single enterprise environment the Bill of Materials (BOM) plays that role and in this paper is proposed a Bill of Materials and Movements (BOMM) as its equivalent in VE environments. The BOMM includes product structure, high level process planning information and some degree of VE composition. BOMM is present during VE formation, operation, and reconfiguration, playing a central role in the material detailed planning and in the movement planning between VE members. In this article the BOMM role during the VE life cycle is described in detail.

Research on Product Development Process Management for Virtual Enterprise

For a manufacturing enterprise to be competitive in constantly changing market environment, it is necessary to adopt a new model called agile manufacturing by organizing Virtual Enterprise. Aimed at developing a product development process management (PDPM) system for Virtual Enterprise, modeling of product development process is discussed and a union information model is proposed using Object Modeling Technique. Based on the J2EE platform, a framework of PDPM system is built up with a three-tiered architecture, which consists of several Enterprise JavaBeans components to ensure compatibility, distribution, and flexibility of the system. A PDPM system prototype is developed utilizing JAVA and has been validated in a simulated virtual enterprise environment.

Responsive supply chain: A competitive strategy in a networked economy

Supply chain management (SCM) has been considered as the most popular operations strategy for improving organizational competitiveness in the twenty-first century. In the early 1990s, agile manufacturing (AM) gained momentum and received due attention from both researchers and practitioners. In the mid-1990s, SCM began to attract interest. Both AM and SCM appear to differ in philosophical emphasis, but each complements the other in objectives for improving organizational competitiveness. For example, AM relies more on strategic alliances/partnerships (virtual enterprise environment) to achieve speed and flexibility. But the issues of cost and the integration of suppliers and customers have not been given due consideration in AM. By contrast, cost is given a great deal of attention in SCM, which focuses on the integration of suppliers and customers to achieve an integrated value chain with the help of information technologies and systems. Considering the significance of both AM and SCM for firms to improve their performance, an attempt has been made in this paper to analyze both AM and SCM with the objective of developing a framework for responsive supply chain (RSC). We compare their characteristics and objectives, review the selected literature, and analyze some case experiences on AM and SCM, and develop an integrated framework for a RSC. The proposed framework can be employed as a competitive strategy in a networked economy in which customized products/services are produced with virtual organizations and exchanged using e-commerce.

Inter-operability framework towards virtual integration of SMEs in the manufacturing industry

A Virtual Enterprise (VE), which is a dynamic and temporal network of independent companies, relies on an inter-operability framework to realise collaborative relationships with trading partners and to facilitate the virtual manufacturing processes. Investing in inter-operability in order to enhance information-sharing applications is a challenge to many Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) that are planning to participate effectively in the VE. This paper reviews the major industry standards for the implementation of inter-operable systems and examines the decision factors for selecting the appropriate inter-operability specifications, with a focus on business connectivity, system scalability and information security. Based on the analysis, we outline a virtual integration infrastructure for SMEs that enables collaborative demand forecasting and production planning processes within the VE environment. This suggestion is further justified by a business case study.

Development of an XML-based structural product retrieval system for virtual enterprises

A single company cannot survive in today's global business environment without collaborating with others. A virtual enterprise is good practice for sharing core resources, experiences and information between companies with the same business goal. Through sharing product information, a company can prevent unnecessary spending in developing similar products that already exist. Although some attempts have been made to facilitate product searches, these methods are typically not suitable for structural product searches under virtual enterprise environments. In this work, an XML (eXtensible Markup Language) based structural product retrieval system for virtual enterprises is proposed to conquer this deficiency. A structural product is first transformed into component strings using a structure parsing algorithm. The structural similarity measurement between a product query and target product is designated and evaluated using a component matching algorithm and fuzzy mode composition. XML technology is used as the data exchange standard so that variant product information can be exchanged smoothly among heterogeneous database platforms. A comparison with a general Boolean search approach shows that the proposed structural search method can help users find desired product information more quickly and correctly. It is believed that virtual enterprise partners can benefit from using this system to increase their competitive advantage.

An evaluation framework for deploying Web Services in the next generation manufacturing enterprise

In today's competitive manufacturing environment, the ability to effectively and efficiently manage the flow of information is a vital competency. Manufacturing enterprises must be able to integrate their internal business processes horizontally and vertically, and they are increasingly required to support federated business processes with other members of their respective virtual value chains. Web Services, an emerging form of service-oriented architecture for distributed computing, have the potential to serve as a key enabling technology to support these requirements. Leveraging the inherent interoperability of Internet and Worldwide Web technologies, they enable cooperative processing across heterogeneous computing environments. This paper presents a framework for evaluating the viability of Web Services technologies to be incorporated into enterprise information architectures to support the business needs and requirements of next generation manufacturing enterprises. It examines economic, technical, and organizational contexts that will influence the ability of manufacturing-related enterprises to deploy advanced information architectures based on Web Services to support the complex business processes needed to collaborate with suppliers, customers, and other stakeholders in virtual enterprise environments.

Genetic algorithm solution for a risk-based partner selection problem in a virtual enterprise

Dynamic alliance and virtual enterprise (VE) are essential components of global manufacturing. Minimizing risk in partner selection and ensuring the due date of a project are the key problems to overcome in VE, in order to ensure success. In this paper, a risk-based partner selection problem is described and modeled. Based on the concept of inefficient candidate, the solution space of the problem is reduced effectively. By using the characteristics of the problem considered and the knowledge of project scheduling, a rule-based genetic algorithm (R-GA) with embedded project scheduling is developed to solve the problem. The performance of this algorithm is demonstrated by a problem encountered in the construction of a stadium station and the experimental problems of different sizes. The results of this trial demonstrate the real life capability of the algorithm. Scope and purpose With the rapidly increasing competitiveness in global manufacturing area, a dynamic alliance VE approach is needed in order to meet the market's requirements for quality, responsiveness, and customer satisfaction. As the VE environment continues to grow in size and complexity, the importance of managing such complexity increases. Once the dynamic alliance is to be established, how to select an appropriate partner becomes the key problem and has attracted much research attention recently. For the partner selection problem, in addition to cost, due date and the precedence of sub-project, the risk of failure of the project is another important factor need to be considered. Therefore, an effective approach that can actually deal with the risk-based partner selection problem is a major concern in VEs. Qualitative analysis methods are commonly used to deal with the partner selection problem in many researches. However, quantitative analysis methods for partner selection are still a challenge to VEs. Therefore, there is a need to formulate mathematical models and propose optimization methods for VEs to make decision on partner selection. In this paper, a risk-based partner selection problem is described and formulated where risk of failure, due date and the precedence of sub-project are concerned. Based on the concept of inefficient candidate, the solution space of the problem is reduced first. Then an R-GA with embedded project scheduling is developed for solving the problem where fuzzy factors-based rules are proposed in order to modify the partner selection according to different situations in the evaluation process of genetic algorithm by using the characteristics of the considered problem and the knowledge of project scheduling.

Managing distributed business processes in the virtual enterprise

In this work the supply–chain coordination in the virtual enterprise environment is subject of analysis. The system developed by UFSC-DBPMS—for the management of distributed business process is presented and some basic concepts for its definition and development are detailed. The DBPMS provides means for getting, analyzing, making available and managing the information from and about a virtual enterprise, enabling the enterprises to make their logistics more efficiently by means of an integrated information-based supply-chain management. All the work presented in this paper was developed within the scope of the ESPRIT project PRODNET-II (production planning and management in an extended enterprise).

Business object modeling, validation, and mediation for integrating heterogeneous application systems

When different business organizations come together to conduct a joint business in a virtual enterprise environment, their application systems need to have a convenient way to specify the services needed from other systems and to transfer data needed by these services. The transferred data needs to be validated and, in some cases, mediated to meet the constraints and data representation requirements of both the source and target application systems. Ideally, the validation and mediation tasks should be done outside of the legacy application systems so that these systems do not have to be modified. In this work, the Business Object Documents (BODs) introduced by the Open Applications Group (OAG) are used for specifying business operations and transferring data among application systems. We use an active object model to model BODs. The model captures not only the data attributes and methods associated with these business objects, but also events and rules for specifying and triggering the enforcement of attribute constraints and inter-attribute constraints and the activation of data mediation operations. The conceptual models of these BODs with their added semantics are used to generate entity classes, converters and skeletal programs needed for enforcing constraints and for converting data. These generated object classes and software components in Java constitute the platform-independent adapters through which heterogeneous application systems inter-operate over CORBA and RMI communication infrastructures. A distributed approach to data validation and mediation is used. It allows the generated code for validation and mediation to be distributed and processed at different sites, thus avoiding the potential network bottleneck of a centralized approach to the validation and mediation of business object documents.

Cooperation coordination in virtual enterprises

Coordination of activities is a determinant element in virtual enterprises. Proper coordination policies supported by flexible coordination mechanisms are necessary to ensure the cooperation among partner enterprises. This paper presents the PRODNET approach to support coordination in virtual enterprises. The adopted model considers on flexibility and configurability as the key aspects to cope with the large diversity of expectable scenarios and operating policies in the virtual enterprise environment. A workflow based approach for coordination is described and especial emphasis is put on a multi-level coordination view. The developed software modules that support the coordination mechanisms are presented, and finally some directions for further research are given.

The PRODNET Federated Information Management Approach for Virtual Enterprise Support

When designing an IT platform aimed at supporting industrial virtual enterprises (VEs), certain issues related to information management requirements become especially challenging, such as the physical distribution of data, the enterprise autonomy and privacy enforcement, access rights to shared information, and data visibility levels, among others. In the ESPRIT project PRODNET II, a federated database architecture was designed and implemented as the base support framework to effectively manage these issues associated with the sharing and exchange of information in the VE environment. In this paper, first the general information management requirements identified for the VE network in the PRODNET II project are described, and then the challenging design issues behind the development of the components of the federated information management system are presented.

Distributed shared memory infrastructure for virtual enterprise in building and construction

This paper proposes a new approach to building a virtual enterprise (VE) software infrastructure that offers persistence, concurrent access, coherence and security on a distributed datastore based on the distributed shared-memory paradigm. The platform presented, persistent distributed store (PerDiS), is demonstrated with test applications that show its suitability and adequate performance for the building and construction domain. In particular, the successful adaptation of standard data access interface (SDAI) to PerDiS and a comparison with CORBA are presented as examples of the potential of the distributed shared-memory paradigm for the VE environment.