Title: Analysing collaborative demand and supply networks of SMEs

Authors: Dario Antonelli, Irene Cassarino, Agostino Villa

Addresses: Department of Production Systems and Business Economics, Polytechnic of Turin, Torino 10128, Italy. ' Department of Production Systems and Business Economics, Polytechnic of Turin, Torino 10128, Italy. ' Department of Production Systems and Business Economics, Polytechnic of Turin, Torino 10128, Italy

Abstract: A widely accepted commonplace states that collaborative behaviours among the economic actors in a region could assure an increased efficiency and effectiveness to the whole social-economic context. When addressing clusters of Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs), the aim is to promote collaborative actions, starting from co-design to co-operative supply chain management. The difficulties arise from the scarce comprehension of the process organisation inside industrial bodies and the difficult assessment of the overall cluster efficiency, effectiveness and economic convenience. This paper analyses different meanings and possibilities of collaboration among SMEs with the goal of introducing a |management control panel| for collaborative networks.

Keywords: small and medium enterprises; networked SMEs; cooperation; enterprise modelling; system modelling; performance analysis; performance evaluation; clusters; management control; collaborative networking; supply networks; collaboration; cooperative SCM; supply chain management; co-design.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNVO.2006.009530

International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations, 2006 Vol.3 No.2, pp.128 - 141

Published online: 19 Apr 2006 *

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