Enterprise Innovation

5A Day of Networked Production Improvement

This chapter describes the most relevant activities carried out in a networked production environment in the furniture sector. Although this is not a very widespread approach, it is becoming a popular approach which is being adopted by many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Spanish furniture sector.

A structure based on the different production phases (planning, sourcing, building and delivery) has been followed in order to give an organized vision about the production activities. The situation presented here corresponds to an ideal production scenario supported by business innovation in virtual enterprise environments (BIVEE) giving special relevance to those activities carried out on the ground to address the manufacturing of goods demanded in a particular order.

5.1. Resources involved

Here are listed the tools involved in the day-by-day activities of a furniture manufacturer which operates in the context of a networked production organization. This list includes a first section that reports traditional tools which are commonly used in the furniture sector to exchange communication between the different actors of the value chain. The second section lists the tools developed in BIVEE such as the key components adopted to achieve an integrated environment for all the actors of the production network. The third section of the list reports the specific actors involved in the trial.

Infrastructures:

1. – communication tools: ...