Virtual Organization interoperability: Case analysis and business modelling

Today the battle of survival forces companies to participate in different Virtual Organizations (VOs) simultaneously. Cooperation in mostly heterogeneous environments needs to address diverse processes, disparate ICT systems and un-normalized communication structures. This burden of cooperation conditions heavily plug-and-play participation of companies into multiple VOs. Interoperability is key to address those deficiencies if enabling integration while keeping as far as possible local procedures and decentralized decision making. Therefore Models need to be developed to address those needs as well as supporting ICT infrastructures. To master complexity and dynamic behaviour of Virtual Organisations, a new model is introduced and demonstrated using the example of Supply Networks within the Automotive Industry. The proposed methodology is based on three basic design elements: superposition of Supply Chains (equated to supply networks), recursive modelling of processes and a web service oriented infrastructure.