Description
Shortening times to market of complex products on the one hand and the need for faster and more efficient creation and evolution of highly specialized enterprises on the other hand motivate the need for Instant Virtual Enterprises. These rely on contemporary software technology for their formation, coordination, evolution, and ultimately, disbandment. This book fuses practical needs with theoretical input to present important research innovations in supporting Instant Virtual Enterprises (IVEs). We show how a business opportunity in the manufacturing domain can be analyzed to form an IVE in a systematic and semi-automated manner, and how this can lead to the construction and then deployment of web-service-based worklows to support the dynamic cross-organizational processes coordinating the work of the IVE. In doing so, coupling to local (intra-organizational) process management arguments and case studies are grounded in the domain of automative manufacturing, which is one of the main drivers of new technology and one of the leaders in industrial diffusion of innovations. The applicability of the presented approach goes beyond the automative domain however, as the concepts and technology described can be used in any enviroments where virtual enterprises need to be dynamically formed and operated to deliver complex products or services. This book contains the main results for the IST CrossWork project, yet it reflects more general developments in the use of advanced information technology to support highly dynamic organisation structures in modern day industrial supply chains and business service networks. The subject matter covers both business and technical aspects of Virtual Enterprise coordination, and this is reflected in the modular structure of the book, designed to allow readers from different backgrounds to benefit from the book according to their interests.
