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International audienceCurrent market dynamics require European SME's to focus on complex products manufacturing and to build non-hierarchical business networks, to assure competitiveness and sustainability. Such trend demands appropriate methods for network formation and management, including reference collaboration processes and supporting ICT tools. This paper presents a framework to support SME's in the creation and management of non-hierarchical networks designed and developed within the European RTD project Net-Challenge. This framework includes methodologies, processes and ICT decision support tools aiming at the efficient creation and management of these networks assuring quick response times and competitive and differentiated offerings

In order to stay competitive and avoid being smashed by large companies, SMEs need to establish and manage dynamic and non-hierarchical networks to respond to market opportunities, ensuring a quick response, unique products with competitive prices and high product quality. This paper proposes an innovative methodological approach and ICT platform to support non-hierarchical collaboration between SMEs for customised product design and manufacturing. The ICT services are based on mapping a methodology on an open source platform in order to apply low cost solutions to SMEs. Two case studies in the fashion industry have been analysed and used to test the proposed approach for network management.

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To successfully compete in the market, European SMEs will have to adopt new business models and establish dynamic and non-hierarchical networks, assuring quick response, fast time to market, differentiated offerings and competitive prices. Sustainability will be found in high-variety and low-volume businesses, related with complex products design and manufacturing. This paper presents a Methodology concept, developed by the European project Net-Challenge, supporting SMEs in building and operating non-hierarchical business networks for complex products manufacturing with Engineer-To-Order (ETO) or Assemble-To-Order (A TO) strategies.

The Commission for Coordination and Regional Development of the North of Portugal (CCDR-N) promoted NORTINOV 2015, a project created to define a regional innovation strategy for the North of Portugal based on automotive clusters and Information Technology, Communication and Electronics (ITCE) clusters. Accordingly, it developed a technology forecast for the year 2015 in order to help the North of Portugal cope with the intensifying global competition and rapid technological changes. This paper describes the methodology used to identify critical technologies for the regional economy of the North of Portugal under the project NORTINOV 2015. It involved three main steps: technology identification and study, in which a list of emerging technologies was implemented; refinement of emerging technologies, in which 90 technologies were identified and finally, classification and hierarchisation of technologies, in which 30 technologies were identified as critical for the crafting of regional innovation strategy. In this final step, a workshop involving major stakeholders of the three clusters under study played a major role.

This paper describes the methodology and the definition of the regional innovation strategy, based on the Information Technology, Communications and Electronics (ITCE) clusters, for the North of Portugal under the project NORTINOV 2015, which was promoted by the commission for the coordination and regional development of the north of Portugal (CCDR-N) under the NORTINOV programme. Three strategic lines were proposed to achieve a regional innovation strategy for the ICTE cluster for the year 2015: the strategic line, in order to create conditions for the development of innovative clusters, the sustainability line, in order to facilitate the interaction with other clusters, and the structural line, in order to position the North region as a world-class region.