A Framework based in Knowledge Management to Create a Virtual Organization Breeding Environment

The effective creation and operation of Virtual Enterprises emerges after the development of a new working culture and the support of a computer network infrastructure that permits the inter-operation among companies, Knowledge is created during the Virtual Enterprise life cycle that rarely is documented and reused. In the present work is proposed the formation of a Breeding Environment that will facilitate the preparedness of potential enterprises and the effective knowledge management. This paper describes a framework to create and support the Virtual Enterprises life cycle, relying on a Virtual Organization Breeding Environment and a Knowledge Management approach. The proposed framework is the result of a five years research project in the field of Collaborative Network Organizations. The framework was developed to be applied for Small and Medium Enterprises and is being validated in a Brazilian workgroup called VIRFEBRAS. A peculiar characteristic of VIRFEBRAS is that its members are competitors and work in the mould and die sector