Virtual enterprise network solutions for virtual product development in the PREMINV e-platform.

Dragoi, George ; Rosu, Luminita ; Rosu, Sebastian Marius 等

1. INTRODUCTION

Under the concept of a global economy, enterprises are assigning design and production environments around the world in different areas. A serious issue of information exchange emerges as companies use traditional hardware and very distinct software appropriate to their field of expertise (Garfield, 2007). Whether we consider one enterprise or a holding of SMEs, for survival, it is necessary to learn from the past, supervise the present and plan the future. An important factor for the enterprise in the products and services development is to know, to establish, to translate and to define the customer requirements using quality methods, tools and techniques. The enterprise use IT & C support to attract, retain and cultivate relationship with customers, streamline supply-chain, manufacturing, procurement systems and automate corporate processes to deliver the right products and services to customer quickly and cost-effectively (see figure 1). In this new era of information, the fundamental sources of wealth are knowledge and communication, and not natural resources or labour work (Rosu et al., 2009).

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

The term "virtual enterprise" has been used in articulating the strategy for the 21st century global manufacturing enterprises. One of the key requirements is to develop an Information System infrastructure to integrate and control the interoperability of the distributed, heterogeneous and concurrent systems in the participating organizations (Dragoi et al., 2007). This article presents a solution for an innovative Information System infrastructure and its Networking Solution to help describing global information technology support for inter-organizational enterprises with the background of modern information and communication technology in the PREMINV platform for SMEs.

2. E-ECONOMY PARADIGM

The global market today increase the need for common and collaborative processes and sharing information seamlessly between companies involved in extended enterprise. All forecasts predict very rapid growth in e-commerce as part of e- business and e-services that attract increasing attention because of the impact of new information and communication technologies on firms, markets, employment, and development. There are fundamental effects on the organization of business flows and processes, transaction costs, the creation of new business models, and changes in the boundaries of firms across sectors (Dragoi et al., 2007). All this effects are defining the new digital economy perspectives on business, products, individuals and technology. Today, digital economy encompasses e-business, e-commerce, and e-services as services or resources that can be accessed through people or businesses, using network technologies (see figure 2). For business, e-service is going to be a new way to save money, to revenue growth, and faster development model. For end-users, e-services increase productivity and simplify life, take advantage of more sophisticated and specialized services on as needed basis. At the level of production dedicated enterprises, e-services are (see figure 2): Business-to-Business (B2B), Intra- Business (IB), and Business-to-Customer (B2C).

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

In a real meaning, an e-business is any business that uses Internet or Internet technologies to attract, retain and cultivate relationships with customers, streamline supply-chain, manufacturing, and procurement systems and automate corporate processes to deliver the right products and services to customers quickly and cost-effectively, also to capture, explore, analyze, and automate corporate processes information on customers and company operations in order to provide better business decisions. E-services and e-business, as were defined, require the enterprise re-thinking and re-modeling, with the system and applications design for an efficient use of new network technologies (Husband, & Bair, 2008). As a general requirement for an infrastructure to support virtual enterprise it can be underlined that the companies must be able to inter- operate and exchange information in real time so that they can work as a single integrated unit, although keeping their independence/autonomy (Ploder & Fink, 2007)

3. THE PREMINV E-PLATFORM

We purpose in the PREMINV platform, a general architecture for an industrial holding or SMEs, geographically dispersed, in order to achieve collaboration between different actors in the Virtual Enterprise, there needs to be common processes supporting the distributed product development process (see figure 3). Innovative techniques to co-ordinate and manage information, resources and documents need to be developed to integrate successfully and reduce lead times, increase quality and keep within budget constraints. Consequently, the partners in the virtual enterprise need to exchange legacy data and migrate with other systems outside their own secure corporate boundary. In order to achieve collaboration between different actors in the Virtual Enterprise, there needs to be common processes supporting the distributed product development process. A central point of future product development is therefore collaboration and communication. We are implemented in the PREMINV platform a solution based as a virtual enterprise networks (VEN) concept (see figure 4).

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

[FIGURE 4 OMITTED]

This is based on consistent, integrated data sets and on tools that support the collaboration. As a general requirement for this infrastructure support is than the SMEs must be able to inter- operate and exchange data, information's and knowledge in real time so that they can work as a single integrated unit, although keeping their independence/autonomy. A virtual product development is supported by VEN and adequate tools, competencies and special application software. A Virtual Enterprise Network needs its own Private Member Collaboration System to communicate and develop its projects and bids. A virtual team must be able to communicate, collaborate and coordinate, all at distance.

4. CONCLUSION

This paper presents the VEN solutions for virtual product development and builds a general architecture of the experimental platform for training, research and consulting in the new digital economy, located in the PREMINV center at the University "POLITEHNICA" of Bucharest. This platform is developed consequently in the CESICED, ORGVIRT & PROGPROC research projects. The benefits of using this solution as a core IT platform for the PREMINV have been identified. They comprise minimized processing times and costs and the improvement of the following features: functionality (system supporting and/or fully automating product development); process; integration (system to (internal or external) system communication); usability (effortless communication between the human user and the system); security (protection of the enterprise knowledge); flexibility (easily adjustable to a fast-changing business environment). It is inevitable that multidisciplinary teams for product design, with members located in different geographic locations, will become more common place in the future.

5. REFERENCES

Dragoi, G., Cotet, C., Rosu. L. & Rosu, S. (2007). Internet/Intranet/Extranet-based systems in the CESICED platform for virtual product development environment, Advances in Integrated Design and Manufacturing in Mechanical Engineering II, Springer, Tichkiewitch, S.; (Ed.), pp., 93-307, Hardcover, ISBN: 978-1-4020-6760-0

Ploder, C. & Fink, K. (2007) An Orchestration Model for Knowledge Management Tools in SMEs, I-KNOW'07 J.UCS., Graz, Austria, pp. 176-184, ISSN 0948-695x

Garfield, S. (2007). Implementing a Successful KM Programme, Ark Group, London, ISBN 0-9554867-2-6

Husband, J. & Bair, J. (2008). Making Knowledge Work--The Arrival of Web 2.0, Ark Group, ISBN 978-1-906355-09-8

Rosu, S. M., Dragoi, G. & Guran M. (2009). A Knowledge Management scenario to support knowledge application development in SMSs. Advances in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Volume 9 (16), Number 1 (30)/2009, pp. 8-15, ISSN 1582-7445