Collaborative networks through competence profiling

Concurrent engineering is often seen as the main means to respond to the increased complexity of engineering systems in sectors such as automotive, ICT and defence. However, concurrent methods struggle to respond to unpredicted events such as late customer requests that dictate unexpected product or process alterations. Focusing on the organisational competence notion, this work introduces a methodology to find suitable engineering Small-Medium Enterprise (SME) partners and to suggest effective collaborative networks. The ideas described have been tested with over 250 engineering SMEs in the West Midland region of England. Strong evidence of the validity of the ideas is provided via an over €3 million European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) program, the West Midlands Collaborative Commerce Marketplace.