Managing Relations in Networks of Enterprises

Enterprises cooperate more extensively with other enterprises in various forms. To enable the cooperation of multiple organizations in supply chains or virtual enterprises, configuration and set-up tools need to define the relations between partnering enterprises. In the one-of-a-kind industry, enterprises collaborate within a Virtual Enterprise (VE). For the definition of relationships among partners in a VE, standard project management ‘tools’ can be used. The relationships among partners in a VE are defined by eXtended Relationship Management (XRM) services. These services need to support a network view, viral effects, many-to-many relations, and ‘configuration’ of the integration infrastructure.