Networked manufacturing:: The impact of information sharing

In this paper we address the impact of information sharing between firms of a manufacturing network. Firms of the network are selected and scheduled to produce an order based on a price-time evaluation of their bids using an optimal planning model for networked manufacturing. Networking strategies, where business relationships are characterized by different levels of shared information on price and capacity, are classified. An illustrative example sketches the impact of information sharing on networked manufacturing using three different kinds of bidding protocol expressing how firms aggregate their information to conform to networking requirements. Finally, the results show that higher networking flexibility in terms of price-time alternatives can be achieved when firms favor tight partnership relations, offering consequently a better scheduling performance. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.