“…Concepts like Quick Response, Accurate Response, Integrated Supply Chain Management, Agile Scheduling, Virtual or Extended Enterprise (see, for instance, [Ross 1996], [Fisher 1994], [Fox 1993], [Rabelo 1996] and[O'Neill 1996], respectively), are being used to describe management models for cooperative supply chain networks. For instance, in the Extended Enterprise (EE) paradigm [O'Neill 1996], [Sackett 1994], a group of interdependent highly specialized enterprises agree in cooperating to make available, at the right times, the demanded quantities of fmal products. In this scenario, the entire business process (including production, storage, transportation) of a product is performed by a network of geographically distributed business units, owned and managed by enterprises.…”