An Architecture for the Virtual Enterprise

This paper will present an architecture for the virtual enterprise based upon an object oriented business process modeling approach. The paper proposes that business processes naturally fall into three categories. Category (1) processes transform external constraints into an internal constraint structure that might be expressed as a system of objectives, policies, and procedures. Category (2) processes acquire and make ready resources used by the enterprise. Finally, category three business processes (design, marketing, manufacturing, distribution) transform the family of inputs into the desired enterprise results or outputs (i.e. products). The business processes are in turn organized into an enterprise. The paper suggests that the virtual enterprise consists of a set of business processes from category (1) which are collectively owned by the virtual enterprise and a set of business processes from all three categories (1,2,3) which are owned by two or more individual enterprises, but used by both the individual enterprise and the agile or virtual enterprise. The agile enterprise temporarily disturbs but does not consume the individual enterprise.