A Decision Support Framework for Collaborative Networks

Abstract

Collaborative Networks (CNs) enhance the preparedness of their participants to promptly form Virtual Organisations (VOs) that meet market opportunities. An agile CN must however continuously create, asses and evolve the set of reference models describing the roles played by the network participants within the typical VOs set up to tackle various types of projects. In addition, the managers of VO setup and operation projects must quickly realise' what needs to be done next' (discover the project processes) and how to model these processes and other relevant aspects in a way that is understood by all CN members involved in those projects. This paper presents a possible framework for a versatile decision support tool that may assist managers and enterprise architects in discovering / updating the main activities and aspects that need to be modelled for various enterprise engineering tasks / task types, with special emphasis on the creation of VOs. A possible application of the framework for a practical scenario is also presented.