Reference model for collaborative manufacturing of customised products: applications in the fashion industry

Abstract

In the recent years, it has been confirmed both by theory and by practice that organisational models need to include networking strategies to cope with the current competitive environment. Different collaboration levels can characterise supply chains, virtual organisations (VO) and business communities; however, managing different networking scenarios is extremely important to allow SMEs to respond to market opportunities, ensuring a quick response, unique products with competitive prices and high product quality. This paper proposes an innovative methodological approach to support collaboration amongst SMEs for customised product design and manufacturing based on the VO concept. The work is based on mapping the methodology with the most important processes characterising the life of a VO and defining the operative practices to be performed within this type of network. This paper presents two case studies in the fashion industry, where the proposed approach for network management was tested and analysed.

Keywords:

• ETO
• CTO
• fashion industry
• virtual organisation
• collaboration

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the co-funding provided by the European Commission, as part of the NMP priority of the Seventh RTD Framework-Programme (2007-13), to the Net-Challenge project (Innovative Networks of SMEs for Complex Products Manufacturing), Ref. CP-FP 229287-2. The authors also acknowledge the valuable collaboration provided by the project team during the research.