Secure resource sharing on cross-organization collaboration using a novel trust method

A virtual enterprise (VE) consists of a network of independent, geographically dispersed administrative business domains that collaborate with each other by sharing business processes and resources across enterprises to provide a value-added service to customers. Therefore, the success of a VE relies on full information transparency and appropriate resource sharing, making security and trust among subjects significant issues. Trust evaluation to ensure information security is most complicated in a VE involving cross-organization collaboration. This study presents a virtual enterprise access control (VEAC) model to enable resource sharing for collaborative operations in the VE. A scenario for authentication and authorization in the life cycle of a VE is then described to identify the main activities for controlling access. Also developed herein is a trust evaluation method based on the VEAC model to improve its security while safeguarding sensitive resources to support collaborative activities. The trust evaluation method involves two trust evaluation sub-models, one to evaluate the level of trust between two virtual enterprise roles, and another to measure the level of trust between two projects. The two sub-models support each other to make resource-sharing decisions, and are developed based on the concepts of direct, indirect, and negative trust factors. Finally, an example of measuring the trust between two subjects is demonstrated after introducing the two sub-models. The VEAC-based trust evaluation method enables the following: (1) secure resource sharing across projects and enterprises, (2) collaborative operation among participating workers, (3) increased information transparency and (4) lowered information delay in VEs.     

Internal pricing strategies design and simulation in virtual enterprise formation

A virtual enterprise (VE) is an organization intended to cope with the rapidly changing manufacturing environment. Organization building is important in virtual domains because it has largely been affecting the success of VEs. However, the process of forming a VE is based on self-determination by the participants. This paper adopts a bargaining model under a scenario of incomplete information to formalize the formation process, considers the characteristics of the VE formation process, presents the pricing strategies for the corresponding bargaining, and verifies the correctness and validity of the pricing strategies using computer simulation. This paper breaks through the relative research that compares the formation process with partner selection from the core enterprise’s perspective and also provides the basis for the intelligent information platform of VE, whose key part is pricing software.     

A goal-oriented trust model for virtual organization creation

Virtual organization (VO) is a main organizational paradigm for enterprises to collaborate in the rapidly changing environment. Advances in information and communication technologies are accelerating collaboration among enterprises in different domains as well as unknown enterprises. In this environment, an enterprise faces more chances to cooperate with other enterprises through the internet. Trust is a key concept in many kinds of interactions, allowing an enterprise to act under uncertainty and with the risk of negative consequences. To minimize the operating risk and guarantee the success of a VO, trust evaluation of potential partners should be considered during the partner selection process. However, trust evaluation methods in the literature have limitations in applying them to small and medium enterprises because they are based on evaluation of human experts. In this paper, a goal-oriented trust model is proposed to evaluate the trust values of enterprises. In the context, trust is the probability that a trustee satisfies the goals when it completes assigned tasks. This paper introduces the concept of a goal-oriented trust model with the core constructs of a goal, a project, a task, and a capability. It further addresses an example of applying the proposed model to the partner selection process of a project-based VO creation.     

A fuzzy trust evaluation method for knowledge sharing in virtual enterprises

The success of virtual enterprises (VEs) depends on the effective sharing of related resources between various enterprises or workers who perform related activities. Specifically, VE success hinges on the integration and sharing of information and knowledge. Trust is an important facilitator of knowledge sharing. However, the trustworthiness of a peer is a vague concept that is dynamic and that often shifts over time or with environmental changes. This study designs a trust-based knowledge-sharing model based on characteristics of VEs and the knowledge structure model to express knowledge associated with VE activities. Subsequently, the factors that affect the trust evaluation are identified based on the characteristics of trust and VEs. Finally, this study develops a knowledge sharing, decision-making framework in which a fuzzy trust evaluation method for sharing knowledge is proposed based on VE activities and the interactions among workers in allied enterprises. The method consists of three sub-methods, including an activity correlation evaluation method, a current trust evaluation method, and an integral trust evaluation method. Under the premises of secure VE knowledge and reasonable access authorization, the proposed knowledge-sharing method provides the trust level between a knowledge-requesting enterprise and a knowledge-supplying enterprise to improve the willingness of the latter to share more valuable knowledge, ultimately increasing the efficiency and competitiveness of VEs.     

A fuzzy trust evaluation method for knowledge sharing in virtual enterprises

The success of virtual enterprises (VEs) depends on the effective sharing of related resources between various enterprises or workers who perform related activities. Specifically, VE success hinges on the integration and sharing of information and knowledge. Trust is an important facilitator of knowledge sharing. However, the trustworthiness of a peer is a vague concept that is dynamic and that often shifts over time or with environmental changes. This study designs a trust-based knowledge-sharing model based on characteristics of VEs and the knowledge structure model to express knowledge associated with VE activities. Subsequently, the factors that affect the trust evaluation are identified based on the characteristics of trust and VEs. Finally, this study develops a knowledge sharing, decision-making framework in which a fuzzy trust evaluation method for sharing knowledge is proposed based on VE activities and the interactions among workers in allied enterprises. The method consists of three sub-methods, including an activity correlation evaluation method, a current trust evaluation method, and an integral trust evaluation method. Under the premises of secure VE knowledge and reasonable access authorization, the proposed knowledge-sharing method provides the trust level between a knowledge-requesting enterprise and a knowledge-supplying enterprise to improve the willingness of the latter to share more valuable knowledge, ultimately increasing the efficiency and competitiveness of VEs.     

Agent技术在虚拟企业创建过程中的应用研究

虚拟企业（virtual enterprise，VE）被认为是21世纪最有竞争力的企业运行模式，它面向全球范围的企业资源，通过构建VE的联盟之间的快速重组，实现联盟企业之间的敏捷化和柔性化。如何选择伙伴企业，则是VE创建过程中的关键。文章首先采用了分布式对象技术以支持VE创建时的需要；然后提取了用于伙伴企业选择的Agent基本属性；规划了伙伴企业选择过程；最后用多Agent技术为VE构建一个支持动态联盟的多Agent远程制造系统。     

航空制造业虚拟企业协作平台设计研究

航空制造业虚拟企业的生产计划和控制有赖于联盟企业的信息协作。虚拟企业协作平台使航空制造业生产网络内部不同企业主体之间的知识与技术的传递与转移机制与路径得以实现。本文设计的CSSCM平台提供的企业服务和项目服务,主要功能有保障全局信息与共享信息的传递与转移,内部信息的控制和维护,同时其协同管理的功能能将分布式协同项目管理与协作支持技术进行有机的结合,有力地保障航空制造业虚拟企业间信息的处理与传递。     

Computer-aided prototyping of production flows for a virtual enterprise

This paper presents a logistics framework to cope with the problem of planning and control of production flows processed on a set of work cells distributed among component firms of a virtual enterprise (VE). The constraints theory framework is employed to study constraint-based production flow coordination rules. The article discusses relationships linking structural parameters (e.g. buffer capacity, machine tool efficiency, and automated storage/retrieval systems) of VE components with material flow control guaranteeing efficient completion of work orders, and specified by such parameters as batch delivery periods, work-in-process (WIP) and make-span. The results are summarized in the form of a performance evaluation scheme. Examples using a software package that implements the proposed flow coordination methodology are provided.     

基于SAML的虚拟企业访问模型

访问控制技术是当前虚拟企业研究的一个重点和难点.通过对国内外的访问控制技术现状的研究,针对虚拟企业环境下多个企业协同工作和无缝访问的要求,提出了基于SAML的访问模型.模型采用XML格式描述,具有易维护和易扩展等优点,可用于解决虚拟企业环境下的用户管理等问题.     

Standardisation in ISO for enterprise engineering and integration

The new paradigm of enterprise organisation—extended and virtual enterprises—calls for easy collaboration between partners to exploit market opportunities with varying opportunity windows. Such collaborations can only be achieved if the partner contributions can be easily evaluated by means of process models which represent the relevant parts of the partner operations. However, these models have to be linked to represent the total enterprise of the new partnership and to allow performance evaluation by simulation. To provide the required model inter-operability, the models have to adhere to a common representation for both model enactment and human understandability. International standardisation is a means to provide the necessary model commonality. The paper presents the state of the art in the relevant standardisation and identifies future work in research, development and standardisation.     

An evaluation framework for deploying Web Services in the next generation manufacturing enterprise

In today's competitive manufacturing environment, the ability to effectively and efficiently manage the flow of information is a vital competency. Manufacturing enterprises must be able to integrate their internal business processes horizontally and vertically, and they are increasingly required to support federated business processes with other members of their respective virtual value chains. Web Services, an emerging form of service-oriented architecture for distributed computing, have the potential to serve as a key enabling technology to support these requirements. Leveraging the inherent interoperability of Internet and Worldwide Web technologies, they enable cooperative processing across heterogeneous computing environments. This paper presents a framework for evaluating the viability of Web Services technologies to be incorporated into enterprise information architectures to support the business needs and requirements of next generation manufacturing enterprises. It examines economic, technical, and organizational contexts that will influence the ability of manufacturing-related enterprises to deploy advanced information architectures based on Web Services to support the complex business processes needed to collaborate with suppliers, customers, and other stakeholders in virtual enterprise environments.     

A Formal Virtual Enterprise Access Control Model

A virtual enterprise (VE) refers to a cooperative alliance of legally independent enterprises, institutions, or single persons that collaborate with each other by sharing business processes and resources across enterprises in order to raise enterprise competitiveness and reduce production costs. Successful VEs require complete information transparency and suitable resource sharing among coworkers across enterprises. Hence, this investigation proposes a formal flexible integration solution, named the formal VE access control (VEAC) model, based on the role-based AC model, to integrate and share distributed resources owned by VE members. The formal VEAC model comprises a fundamental VEAC model, a project AC policy (PACP) language model, and a model construction methodology. The fundamental VEAC model manages VE resources and the resources of participating enterprises, in which various project relationships are presented to facilitate different degrees of resource sharing across projects and enterprise boundaries, and cooperative modes among VE roles are presented to enable collaboration among coworkers in a VE. This PACP language model features object-subject-action-condition AC policies that jointly determine user access authorizations. In addition, the methodology supplies a systematic method to identify fundamental elements of the VEAC model and to establish assignments between elements and relations.     

Selection of partners in virtual enterprise paradigm

Agility is the competitive advantage in the global manufacturing environment. It is believed that the agility can be realized by dynamically reconfigurable virtual enterprise. However, the configuration of virtual enterprises is a challenge to us. In selecting the partners for the reconfiguration of virtual enterprise, many factors should be taken into consideration. However, the manufacturing cost and time to market are the most important factors. In this paper, in considering the completion time as a constraint we model the partner selection problem by an integer programming formulation to minimize the manufacturing cost. The formulation is then transformed into a graph-theoretical formulation and a 2-phase algorithm is developed to solve the problem. In the first phase, a polynomial bounded algorithm is proposed to find the earliest completion time, so we obtained a feasible solution. In phase 2, we improve the solution by exchanging the candidate partners in keeping the solution in the feasible region. Although we may not find the optimal solution for the problem by the improvement algorithm, the objective is reduced iteration by iteration. Thus, the algorithm is efficient and can be applicable to practical problems. An illustrative example is presented to show the application of the proposed algorithm.     

Multi-agent-based task assignment system for virtual enterprises

Manufacturing enterprises continuously have to cope with changing markets that are unpredictable and diverse, with increased global competition and with ever-changing customer demands. These requirements have led to the emergence of the virtual enterprise (VE). The creation of these enterprises, called as VEs, is becoming a growing trend as enterprises concentrate on their core competencies and economic benefit. An enterprise participating as a member of the VE should take initiative in involvement according to the internal production condition, which is changing dynamically with independent management sovereignty. However, most of researches have not considered these issues, that is the constituting enterprises have been regarded as one of the enterprises having their work stations distributed geographically. This paper proposes a multi-agent-based task assignment system for VEs, which attempts to address the selection of individually managed partners and the process of assigning tasks to them. A case example of assigning the tasks to partners is presented to illustrate and prove the proposed system's applicability.     

A multiagent-based complex systems approach for dynamic negotiation mechanism in virtual enterprise

Nowadays a sophisticated match-making mechanism is necessary for appropriate collaborations in virtual enterprise (VE). Virtual market based match-making operation enables effective partner search in terms of products allocation by distributing the scheduled resources according to the market prices, which define common scale of value across the various products. We formulate the VE match-making model as discrete resource allocation problem, and propose a complex market-oriented programming framework based on the economics of complex systems. Three types of heterogeneous agents are defined in the complex virtual market. It is described that their interactions with micro behaviour emerge a macro order of the virtual market, and the clearing price dynamism can be analysed in economic terms. The applicability of the framework into resource allocation problem for VE is also discussed.     

A framework for virtual enterprise operation management

This paper presents researches on operation management for virtual enterprises (VEs). A virtual enterprise is a temporary alliance of member enterprises (MEs) formed to exploit fast-changing opportunities. During the operation of a virtual enterprise, its constituent member enterprises, which are geographically distributed and organizationally independent, collaborate with each other to execute the whole business process (BP) of the virtual enterprise. With the aim of addressing business integration for virtual enterprises, this paper develops a framework for virtual enterprise operation management. From the viewpoint of business processes, carried out is integral research on business process modeling, analyzing, and managing for virtual enterprises. Both the distributed business process model and the model of the virtual enterprise itself are established. The former provides the functional basis of the virtual enterprise operation, while the latter provides its structural basis. Further, the two models are integrated through the loading from the distributed business process model to the virtual enterprise model. Through such model separation and integration, business process management for virtual enterprises is enacted and business integration for virtual enterprises is achieved.     

Empirical study of manufacturing enterprise collaboration network: Formation and characteristics

With the rapid development of society and economy, market competition is getting increasingly fierce. It is almost impossible for a single enterprise to respond promptly to the changing market. As a result, more and more enterprises tend to improve their competitiveness by means of collaboration. Specialization and cooperation arise between enterprises, forming manufacturing enterprise collaboration network (MECN). MECN is a complex network which comes into being by means of numerous enterprises selecting partners. Therefore, partner selection is a key issue in MECN. Considering that existing partner selection methods are subjective and theoretical to some extent, an objective and practical method called gray comprehensive evaluation is adopted in this paper. Besides, probability is introduced to simulate the preference and uncertainties. Correlations between each index and the optimal index are calculated according to which sort the possible partner enterprises, and the enterprises nearest to the optimal indexes are more likely to be selected. An MECN driven by an airplane as the final product is then studied as a case, and the statistical characteristics of the network are analyzed. Results show that probability-based gray comprehensive evaluation is an effective way to model MECN, and the network is of self-organization, complexity and localization.     

基于Web Services和MA的虚拟企业架构

虚拟企业是企业间的一种动态联盟,它面向全球范围的企业资源,通过构建VE联盟之间的快速重组,实现联盟企业之间的敏捷化和柔性化.因此它是未来企业生产经营和市场竞争的发展模式.随着市场竞争的日趋激烈和信息技术的高速发展,对虚拟企业的发展提出了更高的要求.为了解决虚拟企业耦合度过高、缺乏柔性等问题,在分析了Web服务和多代理技术在虚拟企业中应用的必要性和可行性基础上,提出了基于Web服务和多代理的虚拟企业架构,并给出了一个改进模型.     

基于Web Services面向服务架构的虚拟企业解决方案

虚拟企业是一种跨企业间协作的企业模式,因而企业间的应用集成是建立虚拟企业的关键问题之一。针对传统虚拟企业集成方案的复杂、强耦合以及难以维护等不足,利用WebServices技术及UDDI体系实现虚拟企业的优势,提出一个相应的虚拟企业解决方案模型,以达到与环境无关、主动集成和易于维护等目的。