The availability of effective global communication facilities in the last decade has changed the business goals of many manufacturing enterprises. They need to remain competitive by developing products and processes which are specific to individual requirements, completely packaged and manufactured globally. Networks of enterprises are formed to operate across time and space with world-wide distributed functions such as manufacturing, sales, customer support, engineering, quality assurance, supply chain management and so on. Research and technology development need to address architectures, methodologies, models and tools supporting intra- and inter-enterprise operation and management. Throughout the life cycle of products and enterprises there is the requirement to transform information sourced from globally distributed offices and partners into knowledge for decision and action. Building on the success of previous DrrSM conferences (Tokyo 1993, Eindhoven 1996, Fort Worth 1998), the fourth International Conference on Design of Information Infrastructure Systems for Manufacturing (DrrSM 2000) aims to: • Establish and manage the dynamics of virtual enterprises, define the information system requirements and develop solutions; • Develop and deploy information management in multi-cultural systems with universal applicability of the proposed architecture and solutions; • Develop enterprise integration architectures, methodologies and information infrastructure support for reconfigurable enterprises; • Explore information transformation into knowledge for decision and action by machine and skilful people; These objectives reflect changes of the business processes due to advancements of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the last couple of years.

Collaborative Network Organizations (CNO) corresponds to a very active and steadily growing area. For instance, Virtual enterprises/Virtual Organizations (PVC) suggest new ways of work and put the emphasis on collaborative networks of human actors. Further to these main lines, other collaborative forms and patterns of collaborative behavior are emerging, not only in industry, but also in service sector, as well as governmental and non-government social organizations, e.g. the collaborative networks for rescue tasks in disaster situations, time bank organizations, etc. The concept of breeding environment is now understood as a fundamental entity to enable dynamic collaborative organizations.

"This book is a valuable addition to the reading list of executives, managers, and staff in business, government, and other sectors who seek to keep their enterprises agile and efficient as they manage change, implement new business processes and supporting technologies, and pursue important strategic goals"--Provided by publisher.

Modern engineering systems are complex and multi-faceted, and must be flexible, adaptable, and fully integrated with the supply chain and other stakeholders to deliver an effective level of performance. Therefore, this book aims to create an operational view and new understanding of modern system design, commissioning, operation, services and support. It includes system of systems modelling and analysis techniques essential to develop whole of system in view of essential requirements. This book will address professional engineers/operations managers required to design, develop, implement and operate a complex socio-technical system containing many engineering systems. Key Features • Develops a holistic view of system of systems from all possible fields of interest • Introduces the idea of system configurability to understand system of systems in parallel with the typical, classical concepts of engineering systems design • Offers effective coverage of both the engineering aspects and operational aspects of systems of systems • Focuses on pragmatic viewpoints on how to analyze system of systems • Provides practical tools and methods for the readers to develop competence to configure and operate system of systems

Collaborative Networks is a fast developing area, as shown by the already large number of diverse real-world implemented cases and the dynamism of its related involved research community. Being recognized as the most focused scientific and technical conference on Collaborative Networks, PRO-VE continues to offer the opportunity for presentation and discussion of both the latest research developments as well as the practical application case studies.

This handbook is about methods, tools and examples of how to architect an enterprise through considering all life cycle aspects of Enterprise Entities. It is based on ISO15704:2000, or the GERAM Framework. A wide audience is addressed, as the handbook covers methods and tools necessary to design or redesign enterprises, as well as those necessary to structure the implementation into manageable projects.

"This book deals with risk management in enterprise network formations, stressing the importance of risk management in enterprises organized in networks followed by the presentation of the researcher suggested approaches which most of the time emphasizes in a supply chain"--Provided by publisher.

This book contains substantially extended and revised versions of the best papers from the 14th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2012), held in Wroclaw, Poland, in June/July 2012. The 25 full and 3 invited papers included in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 299 submissions. They reflect state-of-the-art research work focusing mainly on real-world applications and highlighting the benefits of information systems and technology for industry and services, thus connecting academia with the world of real enterprises. The topics covered are: databases and information systems integration; artificial intelligence and decision support systems; information systems analysis and specification; software agents and internet computing; human-computer interaction; and enterprise architecture. Chapter “Time Efficiency of Point-of-Sale Payment Methods: Empirical Results for Cash, Cards and Mobile Payments” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Towards collaborative business ecosystems Last decade was fertile in the emerging of new collaboration mechanisms and forms of dynamic virtual organizations, leading to the concept of dynamic business ecosystem, which is supported (or induced ?) by the progress of the ubiquitous I pervasive computing and networking. The new technologies, collaborative business models, and organizational forms supported by networking tools "invade" all traditional businesses and organizations what requires thinking in terms of whole systems, i. e. seeing each business as part of a wider economic ecosystem and environment. It is also becoming evident that the agile formation of very dynamic virtual organizations depends on the existence of a proper longer-term "embedding" or "nesting" environment (e. g. regional industry cluster), in order to guarantee certain basic requirements such as trust building ("Trusting your partner" is a gradual and long process); common interoperability, ontology, and distributed collaboration infrastructures; agreed business practices (requiring substantial engineering Ire-engineering efforts); a sense of community ("we vs. the others"), and some sense of stability (when is a dynamic state or a stationary state useful). The more frequent situation is the case in which this "nesting" environment is formed by organizations located in a common region, although geography is not a major facet when cooperation is supported by computer networks.

Presents the findings of experts and practitioners from the major soft-computing themes Provides an overview of the theory and applications of IMS systems The Area of Intelligence in manufacturing has generated a considerable amount of interest occasionally verging on controversy, both in the research community and in the industrial sector. This proceedings looks at the broad manufacturing domain dealing with both technical and organizational issues, intelligent control is only part, albeit important, of optimal integration and control of intelligent techniques. The importance of creating a synergy of efforts aiming at efficient employment of intelligence in global technological development for manufacturing was recognized by the international IMS (intelligent manufacturing Systems) Initiative and is discussed in this proceedings volume.