The area of virtual organizations, and industrial virtual enterprises in particular, is attracting a large and growing interest both in terms of the research and development and the implementation of new business practices.

I: A Framework for Virtual Enterprises.- 1. The Virtual Enterprise Concept.- 2. Tendencies and General Requirements for Virtual Enterprises.- 3. Federated Information Management Requirements for Virtual Enterprises.- 4. Coordination and Configuration Requirements in a Virtual Enterprise.- 5. Communication Infrastructure Requirements in a VE.- 6. Socio-Organizational Requirements for a VE.- II: The PRODNET Infrastructure.- 7. The PRODNET Goals and Approach.- 8. The PRODNET Architecture.- 9. Design of the Federated Information Management Architecture for PRODNET.- 10. PRODNET Coordination Module.- 11. The PRODNET Communication Infrastructure.- 12. Support for Electronic Data Interchange.- 13. Step Support for Virtual Enterprises.- 14. Production Planning and Control in a Virtual Enterprise.- 15. Product Data Management.- 16. Distributed Business Process Management.- 17. Selection of Partners for a Virtual Enterprise.- 18. The PRODNET Demonstrator.- III: Other Advanced Approaches.- 19. A Framework for Distributed Information Management in the Virtual Enterprise: The Vega Project.- 20. A Design Process Model to Support Concurrent Project Development in Networks of SMEs.- 21. PerDIS: An Infrastructure for Cooperative Engineering in Virtual Enterprise.- 22. SMEs in the Virtual Enterprise — LOGSME Enables It Support.- 23. Implementing Internet Enabled Virtual Enterprises Using Collaborative Agents.- 24. Agent Communication for Scheduling in the Extended Enterprise.- 25. A Framework for Improving the Quality of Operation in a Virtual Enterprise.- 26. A Brazilian Case of VE Coordination.- 27. A Virtual Enterprise Model, as Proposed within Project ICIV Aimed at Supporting Networked SMEs.- 28. Supply Chain Management Based on Market Mechanism in Virtual Enterprise.- 29. TheValue System Designer — An Infrastructure for Building the Virtual Enterprise.- 30. An Electronic Market Architecture for the Formation of Virtual Enterprises.- 31. Automating Partner Selection for a Virtual Organization.- 32. Definition of a Generic Capability Model for Extended Enterprise Design for Manufacture.- 33. Building the Extended Enterprise on Telework, a Case Study.- 34. Virtual Organisations and the Web Site Resource.- IV: Conclusions and Further Work.- 35. Infrastructures for VE: A Summary of Achievements.- 36. Further Developments in Virtual Enterprises.- Final Acknowledgement.

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