Designing a HUB to offer e-engineering brokerage services for virtual enterprises

Abstract

The integration between customer and suppliers in Virtual Organizations requires a better collaboration through the use of Information and Communication Technologies. The phases throughout product development process are executed among engineers in different companies, probably geographically distributed. Engineering service providers can work as Engineering HUBs to offer e-services for industrial networks collaboration in virtual product development teams. This paper describes different e-services offered by engineering HUBs, as well as a classification of the information technologies needed to create collaborative environments. Web services are proposed as an alternative technological solution to build-up engineering e-services. Likewise, applications and tools which have been identified to support collaboration among engineers will be described based on the experiences of two pilot projects. © 2004 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.