Partner selection and information infrastructure of a virtual enterprise network

With the rapid development of transportation and Internet technology, more and more businesses are being organized as manufacturing networks of differ ent units. Some of these units are wholly owned by the core company, others are outsourced to service providers. The formation of virtual enterprises is becoming a growing trend as companies concentrate on lean manufacturing, core competence and economic benefit. Study indicates that the administrat ion and management of these networks, which involves a number of partner co mpanies with dissimilar business natures and mostly geographically disperse d, is an important issue to be addressed. Owing to the diverse interests, c ompetence and business culture of individual partner companies, the selecti on of manufacturing partners is a key success factor. In addition, the capa bility of the information flow infrastructure is another consideration sinc e it affects the performance of the virtual network. This paper attempts to address both of these issues with the objective of showing how small firms can make use of the emerging technology. A case example is presented to il lustrate the manufacture of electronic pagers via the virtual enterprise ne twork.