New Shop Floor Control Approaches for Virtual Enterprises

The virtual enterprise paradigm seems a fit response to face market instability and the volatile nature of business opportunities increasing enterprise’s interest in similar forms of networked organisations. The dynamic environment of a virtual enterprise requires that partners in the consortium own reconfigurable shop floors. This paper presents new approaches to shop floor control that meet the requirements of the new industrial paradigms and argues on work re-organization at shop floor level.virtual enterprise; networked organisations

Review of supply chain partnership process in joint ventures: example as Chinese automotive industry

Under the environment of economic globalization, there has seen a global transfer of manufacturing into China and China’s automotive industry engage in global trade. China faces unprecedented opportunities for development, although there are many challenges it must face. It has become a strategic choice for all automotive enterprises to implement supply chain management in order to achieve competitive advantages. At present, most researches on supply chain partnerships have been carried out based on enterprises in developed countries. Very few theoretical and empirical studies have been based on developing countries, and in particular, only a few scholars have examined supply chain partnerships in China. Based on the joint ventures, this paper is a review of partner theories and process of partner relationship. With respect to the supply chain partnership strategy and process and partners’ capability literature, there is limited research on the special background such as joint ventures or Chinese automotive industry. Some literature on partners’ capabilities is based in favor of the operational aspects

Management and control of complexity in clustering for value creation in sustainable societies

The global production challenges we face need to be addressed in the multifaceted context of sustainability. Startup enterprises need to be both creative and innovative in order to survive and realize growth. Production clusters are usually formed as a result of common geographical location and/or similar economic activity. Clustering can support distributed manufacturing incubators to overcome social, economic and technological challenges through sharing resources. As these clusters must contribute socio-economically to its community, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, complex systems exist. The aim of this paper is to encourage ourselves to direct our research towards concepts which reduce production complexity and support simplicity. This research evaluates several production clusters toward sustainable value creation in developing communities. Key elements of a clustered based growth framework are identified to support manufacturing incubators in South Africa