Virtual enterprise - Organisation, evolution and control

Abstract

Advanced manufacturing concepts such as CIM, "Concurrent engineering", "Agile manufacturing" and "Virtual enterprise " have emerged. This article examines the main characteristics on which the Virtual enterprise (VE) structure depends, in accordance with environmental constraints, production process and strategic objectives. The main types of VE and especially the Consortium VE type are considered. The primary concern with VE is the overall control. A distributed and non-hierarchic control structure for a Consortium VE, allowing tasks distribution and product development management, is proposed with a multi-agent system based solution with self-organisation abilities. © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.