Title: Some design criteria for a manufacturing virtual enterprise

Authors: Agostino Villa

Addresses: Dipartimento di Sistemi di Produzione ed Economia dell'Azienda, Politecnico di Torino, c.so Duca degli Abruzzi, 24, Torino 10129, Italy

Abstract: A virtual enterprise is a temporary agreement between some enterprises that decide to cooperate together in a given supply chain for a limited time span. A crucial point in the development of the said network is to search for partners and organise interactions amongst firms. In practice, each time there is a reorganisation of the network there is firstly the problem of whether a new component firm is included or whether a component wants to be independent. A second crucial problem refers to individual enterprises having to decide for themselves whether or not to become a partner of the virtual network. This paper aims to define some criteria for supporting these two design problems. The scope is to have simple conditions to enable an evaluation of whether a cooperation agreement of some firms together, to become potential partners, could be successfully stipulated.

Keywords: manufacturing virtual enterprise; design criteria; negotiation; cooperation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJATM.2003.003803

International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management, 2003 Vol.3 No.3/4, pp.173 - 184

Published online: 10 May 2004 *

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