Nora Azima Noordin
email: nora.noordin@strath.ac.uk

Umit S Bititci
email: u.s.bititci@strath.ac.uk

Robert Van Der Meer
email: robert-van.der.meer@strath.ac.uk

Review on Collaborative Decision Making in Supply Chain: The Relationship Between E-Collaboration Technology and Development of Inter-Organizational Trust

Keywords: Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Collaboration, Collaborative Decision-Making, E-Collaboration Technology, Inter-Organizational Trust. Boundary Science Direct, ISI Web of Knowledge, Emerald, SAGE Journal, Elsevier Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Collaboration, Collaborative Decision-Making, E-Collaboration Technology, E-Business Technology, Inter-Organizational Trust

In successful supply chain collaborations, effective communication and the development of inter-organizational trust are a key factor. The purpose of these literature review paper is to initially review the previous literature on the relationship between the adoption of e-collaboration technology and factors influencing the development of trust in supply chain collaborations. This study is important to answer the questions whether the adoption of e-collaboration technology may help or hinder inter-organizational trust in collaborative decision-making in supply chain area.

Introduction

The literature review found that there are key elements to create successful supply chain collaboration; cross-functional activities, process alignment, joint decisionmaking and supply chain metrics [START_REF] Barratt | Understanding the Meaning of Collaboration in Supply Chain[END_REF]. Nowadays, the collaborations have expanded globally. It is important to open and develop clear and broad lines of communication [START_REF] Frankel | Grocery Industry Collaboration in The Wake of ECR[END_REF], to foster information sharing and to create a shared understanding [START_REF] Ireland | CPFR: Only the Beginning of Collaboration[END_REF]. Rapid changes in information and communication technology (ICT) have eased the way to collaborate. Partners in collaborative companies can communicate and exchange information easily and of course cheaply using advanced technology in ICT such as e-collaboration technology. Evidently, the number of companies working together for a mutual objective is accelerating and has almost doubled in the past ten years. It is also predicted this will further increase in the future [START_REF] Zineldin | Strategic Alliances: Synergies and Challenges[END_REF].

Successful partner relationships involve the existence of several characteristic traits and it is widely acknowledged that trust is one of them [START_REF] Wehmeyer | Trust Building Potential of Coordination Roles in Virtual Organizations[END_REF]. Trust that will be discussed in this research is 'inter-organizational trust' in the context of collaborative supply chain. Scholars from a number of disciplines have agreed conceptually and empirically that inter-organizational trust, as well as trust in general, plays vital roles in firm behavior and performance. Issues associated with organizational trust have generated deal of broad scholarly interest. There are significant amounts of literature discussing trust in organizational context as well as some other interesting fields such as interpersonal trust and social networks. However, there are lacks of scholarly work on relationship between e-collaboration technology and inter-organizational trust in supply chain area. Thus, the goal of this paper is to investigate and initially review the previous works on the relationship of e-collaboration adoption and factors influencing the development of inter-organizational trust, specifically in the context of collaborative decision-making in supply chain.

The following sections will be organized as follow: Section 2 describes the methodology and process used to carry out the literature review. Section 3 addresses the definition of the terms discussed in this paper based on the previous literature. Section 4 presents the results of this review, we survey the literature on the relationship of ecollaboration adoption and inter-organizational trust in collaborative supply chain, identify and integrate the key themes that emerge from the empirical contribution on the subject. Then, several factors that influence the development of interorganizational trust are described. Finally section 5 concludes the findings of the paper and directions for future research.

Methodology

The information used in this study was gathered using a systematic literature review approach as described in Figure 1. The three research questions taken into consideration were as below.

Research Questions The study initially reviews four types of literature; the literature on collaborative supply chain, collaborative decision-making, e-collaboration technology and interorganizational trust. However, not all type of research issues were selected, only papers that made contribution to the research objectives was selected during the review process.

It started with exploring random literature review in order to get the view on earlier and current researches done in the topics until the research gap was found. Then the systematic literature review approach was adopted during the process of selecting relevant literatures. The researcher applied the concept of systematic literature review to identify high quality literature. A systematic literature review involves two processes (Easterby-Smith et al, 2008):

Defining reviews protocols and mapping the field by accessing, retrieving, and judging the quality and relevance of studies in your research areas and reporting the findings to identify where gaps in the current research exist and so indicate where your research might make a useful contribution. Interorganizational trust is a result from the integration between collaborative processes in supply chain activities that become a research gap for this study.

Collaborative Supply Chain

Collaborative Decision Making e-Collaboration Technology

Inter-Organizational Trust

Definition and Terms

There are several terms that need to be defined clearly in this paper. The study consists of four types of broad research areas; supply chain collaboration, collaborative decision-making, collaborative technology and inter-organizational trust. Each area has its own definition and meaning. This paper identifies definitions of each area from the previous literatures that contain a number of different definitions to refer to the same object.

What is Collaboration?

Collaboration, in the context of supply chain is still relatively embryonic. Collaboration is a very broad and encompassing term and when it is put in the context of the supply chain, it needs yet further clarification [START_REF] Barratt | Understanding the Meaning of Collaboration in Supply Chain[END_REF]. Bititci, 2007, Jordan Jr. andMichel, (2000) defined collaboration literally as 'working together'. The term is often used when individuals or organizations work together towards some common aim. [START_REF] Huxam | Collaboration and Collaborative Advantage[END_REF] suggested collaboration as a positive form of working in association with others for some form of mutual benefits. [START_REF] Cropper | Collaborative Working and the Issue Sustainablity. Creating Collaboratice Advantage[END_REF] defined it as a distinctive mode of organizing with a positive and purposive relationship between organizations that retain autonomy, integrity and distinct identity, but at the same time, the possibility to withdraw from the relationship is exist.

All of the above definitions are similar and complementary each other. For the purpose of this review, authors attempt to combine them into single comprehensive definition that cover all of dimensions on existing literature as follow:

"Collaboration is a number of autonomous organizations in the supply chain that are actively working together towards common objectives, and is characterized by sharing information, knowledge and risk for mutual benefits. Collaborative organizations make decisions together and it is mutual goal setting that goes far beyond a written contract."

Collaborative Decision-Making

Essentially, collaborative decision-making is a process of doing decisions together and achieving same agreement from collaborated parties. It involves process of identifying and choosing alternative courses of action in a manner appropriate to the demand of the situations. In management decisions, terms that most often used suggested by [START_REF] Ofstad | An Inquiry into the Freedom of Decision[END_REF]. Management decision has been defined in many ways. As suggested by Ofstad: "…to say that a (manager) has made a decision may mean: (1) that he (or she) has started a series of (actions) in favor of something, or it may mean (2) that he (or she) has made up his (or her) mind to do a certain (thing)… But perhaps the most common use of the term is: "to make a decision" means (3) to make a judgment regarding what one ought to do in a certain situation after having deliberated on some alternative courses of action [START_REF] Ofstad | An Inquiry into the Freedom of Decision[END_REF].

In this research, the authors apply decision's definition suggested by [START_REF] Harrison | A Process Perspective on Strategic Decision Making[END_REF]; a decision is defined as: "A moment in an ongoing process of evaluating alternatives for meeting an objective, at which expectations about a particular course of action impel the decision maker to select that course of action most likely to result in attaining the objective".

E-Collaboration Technology

Electronic collaboration technology (e-Collaboration) is operationally defined as collaboration using electronic technologies among different individuals to accomplish a common task [START_REF] Kock | Expanding the Boundaries of E-Collaboration[END_REF]D'Arcy, 2002, 2001). McDonell ( 2001) considers ecollaboration as internet-based collaborations, which integrates people and processes giving flexibility to supply and service chain. There are other streams in defining ecollaboration as virtual teaming of structured communication activities by using electronic tools. IBM defined e-collaboration as anything that allows people to collaborate or work together more easily using electronic tools.

In this paper, e-collaboration technology in the context of supply chain is referred to the Internet-based communication platforms used by collaborative organizations to communicate and sharing information and a platform that can be used to assist decision-making process during online meeting. The authors agree with e-collaboration definition in the context of supply chain suggested by [START_REF] Johnson | E-Business and Supply Chain Management: An Overview and Framework[END_REF]:

"E-collaboration is business-to-business interactions facilitated by the Internet. These interactions go beyond simple buy/sell transactions and may be better described as relationships. These include such activities as information sharing and integration, decision sharing, process sharing and resources sharing".

Definition of Trust and Inter-Organizational Trust

For the last two decades researchers from various disciplines have interpreted trust in different ways and given different dimensions by focusing on specific aspect of trust. Trust may function as glues n a relationship [START_REF] Jarillo | On Strategic Networks[END_REF]) and trust may function as a lubricant [START_REF] Arrow | The Limits of Organization[END_REF].

Different concepts of trust have been provided by various studies. Basically, trust relations involve participation of at least two parties: the trustor, the party who places him or herself in a vulnerable situation under uncertainty; and the trustee, the party on whom the trust is placed, who has the opportunity to take advantage of the trustor's vulnerability (Laeequddin et al., 2010). Most common used definition of trust is as suggested by some researchers such as by [START_REF] Mayer | AN Integrative Model of Organization Trust[END_REF]. He defined trust as "the willingness of a party based on the expectations that the other party will perform a particular action important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control the party". Kim et al. (2009) defined trust as a complex and multifaceted construct.

This study focuses on inter-organizational trust concept. The definition of interorganizational trust that agreed to be used in this research is as suggested by Zaheer, McEvily and Perrone (1998).

"Inter-organizational trust is the extent to which members of one organization hold a collective trust orientation toward another organization".

Analysis

Decision-Making Concept

A decision is choice out of several alternatives or options made by the decision maker to achieve some objectives in a given situation. Business decisions are those, which are made in the process of conducting business to achieve its objective and a given environment. Managerial decision-making is a control point for every managerial activity may be planning, staffing, directing, organizing, controlling and communicating. Decision-making is the art of reasoned and judicious choice of many alternatives. Once decision is taken, it implies commitment of resources.

The business managers have to take variety of decisions, some are routine and others are long-term implementation decisions. The managerial decisions are grouped as strategic, tactical and operational decision. Strategic decisions are known as major decision influence whole or major part of the organization. Such decision contributes directly to the achievement of common goals of the organizations, have long-range effect upon the organization. These types of decision are basically based on partial knowledge of the environment factors which are uncertain and dynamic, therefore such decision are taken at the higher level of management. Tactical decision relate to the implementation of strategic decisions, directed towards developing divisional plans, structuring workflows and establishing distribution channels. These decisions are taken at the middle level of management. While operational decision relate to daily operations of the enterprise having a short-term horizon and are always repeated. These decisions are based on facts regarding the events and do not require much business judgments. Operational decisions are taken at lower level of management.

4.2

Types of Collaborative Decisions in Supply Chain

The development of an integrated supply chains means the management should take a look of material flow from three perspectives. As suggested by Stevens (1993) the management have to consider three level of management that are strategic, tactical and operational level where each levels have its own task, the use of facilities, people, finance and systems must be coordinated and harmonized as a whole. The focus at strategic level should be to develop are (Stevens, 1993):

• Objectives and policies for the supply chain. These should be expressed in terms of what supply chain has to do well to support the needs of the business for example be responsive to change, operate at lowest cost, ensure a high level of product availability; • The shape of the supply chain in terms of key facilities and their locations;

• The company's competitive package, planned by product and market availability, service level, lead time, technical support and after-sales support; • An outline organizational structure able to bridge functional barriers and operate an integrated supply chain effectively.

From the tactical perspective, the management should focus on the means by which the strategic objectives can be realized. It involves translating the strategic objectives into goals for each function, enabling the functions to provide complementary balance as parts of the supply chain. The functional goals provide the focus for achieving the balance, and inventory, capacity and service are the levers by which balance is achieved. The operational perspective should be concerned with the efficient operation of the supply chain. It focuses on the detailed systems and procedures, and ensures that appropriate controls and performance measures are in place. Typically, a company should measure the performance of the supply chain in terms of five areas as suggested by (Stevens, 1993):

• Inventory investment; • Service level; • Throughput efficiency; • Supplier performance; • Cost.
Using literature review, this section describes types of collaborative decisions involved in supply chain process. These decisions are made in various levels of supply chain management; strategic, tactical and operational level. Each level has its own activities and processes that need decision-making integration between collaborated supply chain organizations. Generally, Table 2 describes type of processes and decisions involve in supply chain activity in each level. Examples include the order control policy (frequency, replenishment time, back order procedures), order picking (order picking strategy procedure, warehouse routing) and route planning (scheduling, assignment of vehicles). The Supply Chain Planning Matrix by [START_REF] Fleischmann | Advanced Planning, Chapter 4 in Stadtler[END_REF] classifies the planning tasks in two dimensions "planning horizon" and "supply chain process". Figure 2 below shows typical supply chain tasks but with various contents in the particular supply chain levels.

Strategic Level

However, some scholars agreed that it remains disputable at what level of decisionmaking a particular decision should be allocated [START_REF] Becker | Supply Chain Collaboration Across Strategic, Tactical and Operational Planning[END_REF]. The border between the tactical and operational levels is vague [START_REF] Laubacher | MIT Scenario Working Group. Two Scenarios for 21 st Century Organizations Shifting Networks of Small Firms or all Encompassing 'Virtual Countries'?[END_REF], since the fulfillment of actual orders at operational level. The exact position of each decisionmaking element in the hierarchy therefore remains a question of relativity [START_REF] Becker | Supply Chain Collaboration Across Strategic, Tactical and Operational Planning[END_REF].

E-Collaboration Technology Adopted in Decision-Making Process.

Rapid changes in technology gives impact to the style of managing supply chain processes. Collaborations improve supply chain processes by increasing the intensity and scope of co-operative behavior between two or more independent decisionmaking units. Today, collaborative decision-making processes are supported by advanced ICT. It is argued that the value and importance of collaboration has changed, as we migrate from traditional supply chain management (SCM) approach to the e-SCM perspective (Williams, 2002). The evolution of supply chain collaboration technology can be seen from 1990's, from EDI to Web service enable. One of the most commonly implemented information technologies that aims to integrate the supply chain processes is Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). However, with the emergence of the Internet, EDI is slowly being replaced by other e-business standards. The main reasons why EDI implementation was seen as a challenge includes the availability of different standards in EDI, not being able to provide real time data transfer and the high implementation cost [START_REF] Chong | Adoption of Interorganizational System Standards in Supply Chains: An Empirical Analysis of RosettaNet Standards[END_REF]. The 1990s saw organizations moving towards implementing business-to-business (B2B) technologies which allow them to integrate their supply chain processes better [START_REF] Chou | Web Technology and Supply Chain Management[END_REF]). However, researchers such as Chou et al. ( 2004), Chong et al. ( 2009) stated that from the year 2000 onwards, organizations have started to move towards using e-collaboration or collaborative commerce tools in their supply chain. E-collaboration tools do not focus on monetary transactions in B2B and instead cover the exchanges of information and ideas between the trading organizations and within organizations and allows them to collaboratively design, develop, build and manage products through their life cycle. (1) Message-based systems that transmit information to partner applications using technologies such as fax, e-mail, EDI, or eXtensible Markup Language (XML) messages;

(2) Electronic procurement hubs, portals, or marketplaces that facilitate purchasing of goods or services from electronic catalogues, tenders, or auctions;

(3) Shared collaborative SCM systems that include collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment capabilities in addition to electronic procurement functionality.

Rapid development in information communication technology has change the way people communicate. From 2007 until now, the boundary of e-collaboration extents it's capability to the new types of collaborative technology. Social networking and online meeting tools have been widely used by inter-and intra-organizations to facilitate decision-making processes. Of course they can reduce the process cost and time consumption. Besides that, it gives advantage to the organization to leverage the sup- ply chain management network and transform existing business processes especially in the context of decision-making.

The synthesis of the literature leads to the development of evolution in ecollaboration (Figure 3 and4). E-collaboration evolves from intra-to interorganizational collaboration, from vertical to horizontal collaboration and from operational to strategic level of collaboration.

Factors Influencing Inter-Organizational Trust Development

The adoption of e-collaboration technology as medium of communication and decision-making facilitation between collaborated parties arise trusting issues. Trust is a critical factor fostering commitment among supply chain partners. The presence of trust improves measurably the chance of successful supply chain performance (G. [START_REF] Kwon | Factors Affecting the Level of Trust and Commitment in Supply Chain Relationships[END_REF]. Trust plays an important role in the adoption of e-collaboration tools as collaboration involves transparency and sharing of information among the supply chain members. When business partners want to adopt e-collaboration tools in their supply chain collaboration, an organization that trusts its partners is more likely to reach consensus in terms of achievable benefits by e-collaboration tools [START_REF] Shang | Internet EDI Adoption Factors: Power, Trust and Vision[END_REF]. In the case of e-collaboration adoption by inter-organizations, the trust is the firms' willingness to trust their supply chain partners in sharing important supply chain information, for example product design and research and development. Other scholars identifying trust as a significant factor in determining the adoption of interorganizational systems include Ratnasingam (2001), [START_REF] Dubelaar | Benefits, impediments and Critical Success Factors in B2C e-Business Adoption[END_REF], [START_REF] Barratt | Understanding the Meaning of Collaboration in Supply Chain[END_REF], [START_REF] Ngai | Logistics Information Systems: The Hong Kong Experience[END_REF] and [START_REF] Hart | Power and Trust -Critical Factors in the Adoption and Use of Electronic Data Interchange[END_REF].

From sociologist point of view, the role of the past in the creation of trust show that the history of previous interaction between organizations; including familiarity as well as relationship history leads to increased trust (Gulati, 1995). Although previous history clearly does not equate exactly to prospects for extended future collaboration, the question of how past ties and history serve as a signal of the "shadow of the future", and the associated trust or cooperation emanating from it, appears to be an unresolved issues [START_REF] Zaheer | Interorganizational Trust. Handbook of Strategic Alliances[END_REF]. McEvily et al., 2003 suggest that vulneability is an important aspect of trust creation. If vulnerability leads to trustworthiness, this may have indirect implications for organizational performance, because trustworthiness and performance have been shown to be linked [START_REF] Dyer | The Role of Trustworthiness in Reducing Transaction Costs and Improving Performance: Empirical Evidence From the U.S, Japan and Korea[END_REF].

This study also indicates several other factors that influence inter-organizational trust development and the willingness of using e-collaboration technology as medium of communication as in Table 3.

Authors

Factors influencing trust [START_REF] Fukuyama | Trust: The Social Virtues and The Creation of Prosperity[END_REF], [START_REF] Husted | Transaction Costs, Norms and Social Network: A Preliminary Study of Cooperation in Industrial Buyer-Seller Relationships in The U.S and Mexico[END_REF], [START_REF] Lane | The Social Regulation of Inter-firm Relations in Britain and German: Market Rules, Legal Norms and Technical Standard[END_REF], [START_REF] Lane | The Social Constitution of Trust: Supplier Relation in Britain and Germany[END_REF], Location and national culture. [START_REF] Dyer | The Determinants of Trust in Supplier-Automaker Relationships in the U.S, Japan and Korea[END_REF] National setting, length of time since the first interaction.

Sako (1998), [START_REF] Dyer | The Role of Trustworthiness in Reducing Transaction Costs and Improving Performance: Empirical Evidence From the U.S, Japan and Korea[END_REF], Gulati (1995) and Singh (1998)

Regional and culture differences Kramer (1999), [START_REF] Wicks | The Effect of Context on Trust in Firm-Stakeholder Relationships: The Institutional Environment, Trust Creation and Firm Performance[END_REF] Social, institutional and psychological norms [START_REF] Giddens | The Constitution of Society[END_REF], [START_REF] Coleman | Foundations of Social Theory[END_REF] Coordination roles, role of third parties [START_REF] Meyerson | Swift Trust and Temporary Groups[END_REF] Inter-personal trust The argumentation in this section has shown that different aspect has justified the factors influencing inter-organizational trust. Some scholars agreed that the differences in culture and nationality have given impact in the development of trust. Norms and they way of thinking as well as capabilities in technology literacy influence the inter-organizational trust.

Collaborative Trust

From a research done by a common belief leading parties to view supply chain partners' capacity and capabilities as an extension of their own business. When this occurs, companies share resources willingly to help partners improve their own processes and competitive positioning. This increased relationship commitment as not based on altruism but it arises out of a philosophy that competitive success depends on the strength of the supply chain team.

Conclusions and Future Research

Using a literature review, this study described the relationship of e-collaboration adoption and factors influencing the development of inter-organizational trust, specifically in the context of collaboration decision-making in supply chain. Our analysis showed that types of decisions involve in supply chain are varies depending on the level of supply chain management. These decisions are made in various levels of supply chain management; strategic, tactical and operational level. Each level has its own activities and processes that need decision-making integration between collaborated supply chain organizations. The evolution in information communication technology has changed the way people communicate. This scenario able to assists collaborative companies to use the e-collaboration technology as a medium of communication and to make decision-making process more efficient. It gives advantage to the organization to leverage the supply chain management network and transform existing business processes especially in the context of decision-making. Trust plays an important role in the adoption of e-collaboration tools as collaboration involves transparency and sharing of information among the supply chain members. This study revealed several factors that influencing trust development between collaborated companies such as the company's past collaboration record, roles of inter-personal trust between people in the organization, culture differences and national setting.

There are significant amounts of literature discussing trust in organizational context as well as some other interesting fields such as interpersonal trust and social networks. However, there are lacks of scholarly work on relationship of e-collaboration technology and inter-organizational trust in supply chain area. Little empirical research has been carried out to assess the e-collaboration technology and it effectiveness in the context of decision-making process. This has been given opportunity for future research and to explore issues that are not studied in the literature.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1.This figure shows the research gap between three types of research areas. Interorganizational trust is a result from the integration between collaborative processes in supply chain activities that become a research gap for this study.

Fig. 2 .

 2 Fig. 2. The Supply Chain Planning Matrix (Rohde et al., 2000; in: Fleischmann et al., 2002; adapted).

Figure 3

 3 Figure 3 shows timeline of the evolution in supply chain collaboration from 1990 to 2005 (Pramatari, 2007) in retail and enabling technologies and this paper extends the evolution from 2005 to 2011 in Figure 4.

Fig. 3 .Fig. 4 .

 34 Fig. 3. Evolution of supply chain collaboration practices in retail and enabling technologies from 1990 to 2005 (Pramatari, 2007).

Fig. 5 .

 5 Fig. 5. Trust maturity framework (S.E. Fawcett et al. 2012)

Table 1 .

 1 What are the factors influencing inter-organizational trust development? Literature Review Process.

1. What are the types of collaborative decisions in supply chain? 2. What kind of E-Collaboration technology adopted in decisionmaking process? 3.

Table 2 .

 2 Types of Decisions in Supply Chain Process

Table 3 .

 3 Factors influencing inter-organizational trust

  Fawcett et al. (2012), there are four stage of developing trust in supply chain. Stage 1 consists of limited trust, Stage 2 transactional trust, Stage 3 relational trust and Stage 4 collaborative trust. Relationships that reach Stage 4 entail


Patrick Sitek

Klaus-Dieter Thoben

Quality Management to Support Single Companies to Overcome Organisational Challenges in Collaborative Enterprise Networks

Keywords: Collaboration, enterprise networks, organisational challenges, quality management, SME

ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

Introduction

The development and production of complex products in EN is carried out along value chains composed of the contributions of different single companies [START_REF] Seifert | Collaboration Formation in Virtual Organisations by applying prospective Performance Measurement[END_REF]. In case that value chains are extended across organisational boundaries, the complexity of the chains heavily increases. In order to achieve e.g. the development of products in a satisfactory time-to-market, different EN members are required to develop components of this new product simultaneously. In such a case, each partner of an EN is embedded in organisational relationships with identifiable counterparts. Relationships can be e.g. the need for information and material sharing, the need for consensus or a common work on a specific design. The decentralized but simultaneous way of working in such environment results into new organisational challenges for single companies.

Problem to be solved

Modelling value chains by dividing required product and services development on different companies and modelling inter-organisational EN structures, results in work related interdependencies and interfaces between companies [START_REF] Albani | Current trends in modelling inter-organizational cooperation[END_REF][START_REF] Jones | Organisation, Theorie, Design und Wandel[END_REF][START_REF] Vahs | Organisation -Einführung in die Organisationstheorie und praxis[END_REF][START_REF] Binder | Enterprise management: a new frontier for organizations[END_REF][START_REF] Robinson | Defining the concept of supply chain quality management and its relevance to academic and industrial practice[END_REF]]. An increas-ing division of work like in collaborative EN lead to such interdependencies and interfaces. The existence of interdependencies und interfaces again leads to a higher need for coordination as single companies might not be able to overlook all structural interdependencies and process-related interfaces. Following a single manufacturer scenario, it is possible to manage structural interdependencies and process-related interfaces efficiently. Customer requirements for good or service can be well defined in process descriptions and internally executed to achieve demanded characteristics of a required good or service (see Fig 1

Fig 1. Transferring customer requirements into process commands

Going one step further the same aspect can be discussed in the context of two and more manufacturers like in a supply chain cooperation. Cooperations in supply chains are characterised by a stable and fixed long-term relationship between companies based on a hierarchical buyer-seller relationship [START_REF] Seifert | Collaboration Formation in Virtual Organisations by applying prospective Performance Measurement[END_REF]. Due to a strong hierarchy it is possible for the original equipment manufacturer ("A" in Fig 2 ) to regulate and transfer requirements and corresponding information from customer (input) as downstream through the entire supply chain or at least to the first tier companies in the supply chain. The first tier companies ("B" and "C" in Fig 2) logically pass the requirements as significant information to the downstream tiers and receive the required goods or services back in the upstream. Divided in different supply tiers each company supplies its upstream tier with material based on strictly prior defined requirements (e.g. "D" supplies "B", "B" supplies "A" in Fig 2). This way customer requirements and process information can also be manageable in an inter-organisational supply chain scenario through a stricter handling of control, regulation and documentation by hierarchy. Compared to stable and long-term supply chains, EN can feature a more complex business environment, due to their dynamic behaviour. The dynamic behaviour can mainly be characterised by the organisational structure and operational processes in EN [START_REF] Sitek | Qualitätsmanagement in dynamischen Unternehmensnetzwerken -Anforderungen an Qualitätsmanagementsysteme[END_REF]. In regard of organisational structure an abandonment of formal and hierarchical structures is possible which results in a multitude of degrees of freedom and retention of each EN partner's autonomy. In regard of operational processes, temporary and in an extreme case uniqueness existence of processes is possible. Organisational structures and operational processes in EN are usually not determined by fixed and hierarchical partnerships of long duration. This is what makes EN so dynamic and in turn it results in a higher complexity of the business environment [START_REF] Paetau | Virtuelle Unternehmen zwischen Interaktion und Organisation[END_REF] in form of EN life-cycle phases [START_REF] Thoben | Typological Issues in Enterprise Networks[END_REF]. The advances of this dynamic behaviour that accrue on the one hand are a higher flexibility and response time to the market but on the other hand they constrain stability and coordination of an organisation. Compared to the hierarchical scenario in supply chains (see Fig 2), less organisational stability and coordination in EN makes less manageable organisational forms possible where tracing and coordinating of customer requirements in a downstream and material flows in a upstream become more challenging (see Fig 3). The transformation of requirements (input) and the management of information flow between EN companies become more error-prone as less manageable.

Customer requirements to good or service

Customer requirements to good or service

Characteristics of final good or service

Findings

To better understand the dynamic character of EN and the existence of relations and interdependencies between single companies in EN, this chapter discusses EN from the organisational design perspective. Organisational design is an instrument for an efficient management of companies and overall business goal achievements. The core function of organisational design is the organisational differentiation and organisational integration [START_REF] Vahs | Organisation: Einführung in die Organisationstheorie und -praxis[END_REF]. The idea of organisational differentiation and integration as well as organisational structures and operational processes can be transferred for EN as shown in Fig 4. Following this, the main business job in EN is the collaboration opportunity [START_REF] Sitek | Concurrent Innovation: an emerging paradigm for Collaboration & Competitiveness in the extended enterprise[END_REF]. Within the task analysis and synthesis the right companies need to be found based on their competences that matches in most promising way the fulfilment of the business job requirements. Companies possessing the right competences are linked in a network that visualises the organisational structure of the EN. Within the job analysis and synthesis the companies' individual operating value processes are identified, harmonised and integrated into an inter-organisational value or process chain that visualises the process organisation of the EN.

Fig 4. Organisational differentiation and integration in EN

From operational process perspective there is the risk of not identified interfaces between companies within the inter-organisational value chain. Between two linked value adding company processes in a value chain there is an inter-organisational interface. The possibility of lack or loss of relevant information due to this interface becomes obvious (see Fig 5). From organisational structure perspective there is the risk of not identified interdependencies between companies in an EN. Supply chains show stable, well-defined and by the time well-developed relations between companies. Temporarily, contractspecific and probably nonrecurring inter-organisational relations like in EN harbour a certain danger for companies not to identify all relations of a network constellation. Not identified relations lead to a wrong conclusion of the organisational structure of an EN. Fig 6 addresses a potential misinterpretation of an organisational structure for the company "A". In this case company "A" expect three relations with other companies in a network but de facto there are four relations and also four interdependencies to be taken into account. Long-term and stable continuous production networks with a chain interdependency topology exhibit a clearer defined hierarchy with a defined relation mostly followed the material flow or a product structure logic (e.g. bill of material). Relevant information like customer requirements, product specifications and process instructions, can be easier communicated and controlled top (see Fig 2). Characterised by the absence of hierarchies keeping and respecting the autonomy of each network partner EN structures cannot be generalised and pre-defined as they are situation and case dependent. The duration of collaboration in an EN consisting of a variety of independent companies is limited, in extreme case, to one certain customer demand and the network has to be re-structured for the next demand. Summarising, while joining a collaborative EN a single company faces two main challenges:

1. Overcome of inter-organisational interfaces within the value chain of a collaborative enterprise network (operational process perspective). 2. Identification of interdependencies with other companies within the structure of a collaborative enterprise network (organisational structure perspective).

Results

To overcome these organisational challenges a quality management (QM) approach is proposed within this paper. This is due to the fact that usually companies organise their organisational objectives and management of process to realise these objectives in quality management systems (QMS). This is a new approach as mostly today's QM approaches still mostly focus on an intra-organisational perspective and or long-term oriented inter-organisational perspective [START_REF] Sitek | Towards inter-organisational perspective to manage quality in temporary enterprise networks[END_REF]. In order to proceed towards an approach to support single companies in better managing organisational challenges in EN, it seems to be promising to bridge the two fields of EN and QM. For this purpose an initial reference model has been proposed that combines the two single and independent fields in a simplified way. Based on such a reference model the elements of future concepts to support building of organisational structure and process orientation in EN and the reduction of potential interorganisational information losses can be achieved. Following The reference model bases on two pillars. It takes EN life-cycle phases (preparation, formation, operation and dissolution) [START_REF] Thoben | Typological Issues in Enterprise Networks[END_REF] and usual steps in designing and implementing a QMS (planning, controlling, leading and improving quality) (see Table 1).

Table 1. Design and implement a QMS [13]

Quality Plan

• Determining customer needs, expectations and requirements.

• Establishing quality objectives of the organisation.

• Determining processes, resources and responsibilities to attain quality objectives.

Quality Control and Lead

• Establishing and applying methods to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of processes to attain quality objectives.

Quality Improvement

• Eliminating nonconformities within quality objectives.

• Establishing and applying a process for continual improvement of processes to reach quality objectives.

The preparation phase of EN offers a proper timing for companies to determine and promote their competences that might be interesting for other business partners. Doing so it is also the timing to determine business expectations, the objectives for collaborative business and to determine and prepare or adapt needed processes, resources and actors to be able to properly offer the core competence within an EN. During the formation phase, after a business opportunity appeared and the customer needs and requirements are determined, contract specific activities for organisational linkage of selected partners and competences can be performed by synchronising and harmonis-ing of the identified processes, resources and actors. Linkage of partners by their competences facilitates a proper EN structure and the identification of interdependencies. Process instructions for inter-organisational collaboration on the management of interfaces, can be implemented within a running quality planning in the QMS. The operation phase of EN offers the possibility to follow and monitor the created EN in terms of organisational structure/interdependencies and process orientation/interfaces. Therefore existing and applied methods implemented within existing QMS to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of processes can be used to attain network and quality objectives. The last phase of the life-cycle model of EN, the dissolution phase offers ideally the opportunity to take up gained knowledge during the operative monitoring and use it to improvement future collaboration preparation and operational activities. Potential suggestions for improvement can be retained and flow in quality planning issues in the preparation phase of an EN. This way a continuous improvement process can be realised even in temporarily business conditions like in EN.

Outlook

Companies are adopting new organisational forms that incorporate some level of 'virtuality' and 'modularity', that is, allowing certain processes to be performed outside the boundaries of the own company, and involving inter-organisational relationships at a deeper level than the traditional supplier-customer relationship. Such relationships might be characterised by short-term, temporary alignment of operations in EN where core competences of different actors are combined in a job-oriented fashion for a defined period. In this context, inter-organisational processes gain in importance when compared to the intra-organisational processes [START_REF] Petridis | Qualität in der Informationsgesellschaft -Die Rolle der Qualität in virtuellen Unternehmen und E-Commerce-Strukturen[END_REF].

To transform customer requirements and to manage information in interorganisational EN will require a shift in focus from the way the companies allocate and structure their internal processes and resources towards the way it relates own processes and structures to those of the other counterparts in a network. Therefore QM approaches can be useful but they need to take the inter-organisational trend into account. For single companies it is necessary to identify possible connections and interdependencies between network members. To allow this, the next step for approaches or adaptations of available QM approaches is to ask companies to question existing structures and processes and study potential room for open structures and processes for smart harmonisation and synchronisation. The better the level of harmonisation and synchronisation can be realised the more reliable exchange of relevant information between the network members can be achieved and guaranteed. Identifying interdependencies in networks and adapting own core competencies to the networked environment, is necessary for organisations to finally guarantee complex customer demands in EN.

At the end the main goal will be to provide smart guidelines to quickly identify relevant business requirements from an EN, these are mostly interdependencies between core competences as communication content, and to model them more easily as operational processes and organisational structures. Modelled and well understood inter-organisational structures, resulting in communication structures with understanding of relevant content to be exchanged, help to guarantee a successful distribution of customer requirements through the entire value chain of an EN. Further approaches based on the concept developed within this work could help to provide more transparency on information exchange on the inter-organisational level and thus contribute to process quality and value in EN. This will help in turn to reduce the lack of information that is a risk for quality in collaborative business and finally leads to higher satisfaction of customers by providing the demanded product/service with planned quality and to the planned price, and in the planned time.

Fig 2 .

 2 Fig 2. Transferring requirements through a supply chain

Fig 3 .

 3 Fig 3. Transferring requirements through an EN

Fig 5 .

 5 Fig 5. Challenges on operational processes in collaborative EN

Fig 6 .

 6 Fig 6. Challenges on organisational structure in EN

Fig 7 .

 7 Fig 7. Bridging EN life-cycle phases and steps for building QMS

  ).

	Customer requirements for good or service	Input	commands Process	executions Process	Output	Characteristics service of final good or


Thorsten Wuest

Klaus-Dieter Thoben

Information Management for Manufacturing SMEs

Keywords: information management, SME, manufacturing, product state, collaboration, in-process, quality

Manufacturing SMEs are the backbone of the prosperous German engineering sector. Known for advanced technology and premium quality, they face a constant need to improve their processes. This is especially true for SMEs involved in collaborative production networks. Within these networks, each partner is required to constantly improve their process and product quality. One possible method to accomplish this, is by improving the information management based on the product state. An elementary requirement for such a system is to understand the SME specific challenges. This paper will provide an overview of special conditions of manufacturing SMEs, derive requirements on product state based information management and provide insights and recommendations of implementing such a system by using practical examples.

Introduction

The prosperous German economy, seen as an engine of growth within the European Union [START_REF] Thesing | New Rules And Old Companies[END_REF], depends heavily on the strong industrial sector, in particular, the division of mechanical engineering due to its reputation for advanced technology and premium quality [START_REF]The problem with solid engineering[END_REF][START_REF] Fink | International case studies: To what extent is ICT infused into the operations of SMEs?[END_REF]. The backbone of this German engineering success are at large the specialized manufacturing Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs). However, being successful does not necessarily mean that there is no potential for further improvements [START_REF] Schiersch | Inefficiency in the German Mechanical Engineering Sector[END_REF]. On the contrary, as manufacturing SMEs develop over time, they face new challenges brought forth by global competition, which focuses heavily on quality and price. Partly, the manufacturing processes of certain SMEs are not competitive compared to Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) which actively manage their value adding processes [START_REF] Schiersch | Inefficiency in the German Mechanical Engineering Sector[END_REF]. Manufacturing processes are constantly becoming more complex and are increasingly carried out at multiple locations [START_REF] Seifert | Collaboration Formation in Virtual Organisations by applying prospective Performance Measurement[END_REF]. This developments add to the need to strategically engage in process improvement in order to stay competitive on a global scale. As SMEs are part of collaborative production networks that are actively involved in complex product creation with other companies of different size and organization (e.g. MNEs, SMEs), they have to fulfill certain requirements on both process and product quality or even have use certain technologies for the sake and as a basis of collaborative success (see Fig. 1) [START_REF] Sitek | Towards inter-organisational perspective for managing quality in virtual organizations[END_REF][START_REF] Donath | Methode zur Einführung der RFID-Technologie in KMU[END_REF]. Therefore, end product quality does not only depend on internal quality of each stakeholder but also on interdependencies amongst these stakeholders. A vivid understanding of these interdependencies can be seen as a basic requirement for improving quality in collaborative networks [START_REF] Wuest | Organisational and technical interdependencies in collaborative production[END_REF].

Fig. 1. Necessity for stakeholders to fulfill requirements (e.g. on quality like ISO 9001) in order to participate in collaborative production (compare [START_REF] Seifert | Collaboration Formation in Virtual Organisations by applying prospective Performance Measurement[END_REF])

Manufacturing SMEs today, even with their highly specialized operations and complex products, often have out-dated solutions for their information management. Another frequently found options is that the companies have up-to-date information management systems but either no trained or responsible personnel or no transparency over the own manufacturing processes and information/data needs. One important aspect within this area is the ability to continuously derive detailed information of a product throughout the whole manufacturing process, e.g. supported by tracking and tracing. This creates the basis for practical information management systems as well as quality improvement and assurance [START_REF] Van Dorp | Tracking and tracing: a structure for development and contemporary practices[END_REF]. On the one side, such a system helps to improve internal quality of stakeholders and thus provides the basis for enhanced quality of the whole network and the final product. On the other side, it provides customers with a continuous proof of the product state [START_REF] Wuest | State of steel product in industrial production processes[END_REF] along the manufacturing process. In some high-tech industries such as the aerospace industry, there are already specifications in place which enforce a continuous tracing of products and permanent access to connected information throughout the whole supply chain [START_REF]Qualitätsmanagementsysteme, Anforderungen[END_REF]. All companies trying to conduct business within this industry need to prove their capability to comply with these requirements. Other industries, like the food or pharmaceutical industry have to follow rigid legislations as well [START_REF][END_REF].

In the following section, general characteristics of manufacturing SMEs will be presented incl. two practical example of manufacturing SMEs mainly active in the automotive sector, one producing gear wheels and the other impellers. Section three will shortly introduce information management in the manufacturing industry. Whereas section four will derive requirements and recommendations for manufacturing SMEs which are planning to implement information management. Section five will conclude the paper and will also provide an outlook for further areas of research.

Characteristics of Manufacturing SMEs

SMEs represent the majority of companies in Germany and are crucial for the economy [START_REF] Schiersch | Inefficiency in the German Mechanical Engineering Sector[END_REF][START_REF] Donath | Methode zur Einführung der RFID-Technologie in KMU[END_REF]. In this section, major characteristics of manufacturing SMEs in Germany with information management will be presented (see table 1).

As the name already implies, SMEs are smaller, both in sales volume and number of employees (less than 250 employees according to EU definition [START_REF] Ritchie | CT adoption by SMEs: implications for relationships and management[END_REF]) than for example MNEs. Thereby, the organizational structure of SMEs is less complex and informal [START_REF] Wagner | Qualitätsmanagement für KMU: Qualität sensibilisieren, realisieren[END_REF]. This allows SMEs to be more flexible and react quickly to changing market conditions. They also have strong ties to their customers and have to fulfill the quality requirements that are demanded [START_REF] Allan | A FRAMEWORK FOR THE ADOPTION OF ICT AND SECURITY TECHNOLOGIES BY[END_REF]. At the same time, SMEs have not enough spare personnel to run specialized departments for supporting processes like knowledge management, quality management or Information Technology (IT) [START_REF] Ritchie | CT adoption by SMEs: implications for relationships and management[END_REF][START_REF] Caldeira | Understanding the successful adaption and use of IS/IT in SMEs: an explanation from Portuguese manufacturing industries[END_REF][START_REF] Harindranath | ICT Adoption and Use in UK SMEs: a Failure of Initiatives?[END_REF]. These very important supporting activities [START_REF] Porter | On Competition[END_REF] often have to be outsourced or must be carried out by employees in addition to their tasks within the primary activities. Similar to human resources, available financial resources are also a limiting factor for most SMEs. The organizational structure can be characterized as less bureaucratic than larger companies [START_REF] Allan | A FRAMEWORK FOR THE ADOPTION OF ICT AND SECURITY TECHNOLOGIES BY[END_REF]. At the same time, the leadership can often be described as being conservative and more patriarchic. Compared to MNEs the company's strategy is not derived of intensive and methodical accurate analyses and market research but dictated by a strong leader, often the owner of the SME. All these factors do affect the IT strategy of SMEs [START_REF] Harindranath | ICT Adoption and Use in UK SMEs: a Failure of Initiatives?[END_REF]. Often SMEs do not have an in-house IT department to develop own solutions, at the most, they have a few IT administers to keep the infrastructure running. All other IT related needs like software development are often outsourced [START_REF] Harindranath | ICT Adoption and Use in UK SMEs: a Failure of Initiatives?[END_REF][START_REF] Fink | International case studies: To what extent is ICT infused into the operations of SMEs?[END_REF]. SMEs tend to buy tailored solutions for particular problems and try to avoid standardized, companywide and expensive solutions (like SAP). One of the reasons in which SMEs opt out of such a commitment is due to substantial financial and time investment in software licenses and training of employees [START_REF] Wymer | Factors influencing e-commerce adaption and use by small and medium businesses[END_REF][START_REF] Ritchie | CT adoption by SMEs: implications for relationships and management[END_REF] as well as dependency on regular updates [START_REF] Harindranath | ICT Adoption and Use in UK SMEs: a Failure of Initiatives?[END_REF]. In the following paragraphs two practical examples of German manufacturing SMEs with a background in mechanical engineering will be presented. The first company produces a wide variety of products, e.g. gear wheels, for a large and diversified customer base with roughly 220 employees most of them blue collars working in manufacturing. The batch size varies from over 1000 to just a single product. A small number of white collars, mostly engineers, are responsible for production planning and control, product development and quality management etc. They have very limited capacity for anything other than direct value adding processes. The company's IT infrastructure has grown over time and was adapted by new IT solutions of external sources whenever new functionalities were needed.

Lately, the customer requirements on product quality and documentation increased, for example some customers requested a complete product resume for the whole production process. Currently, the company is not able to fulfill this request yet, as, first, the existing information system is not prepared for handling such information and second, there is no comprehensive physical tracking and tracing of individual products from raw material to final product in place yet. Concrete actions tackling the challenge are not planned in the near future as the personnel in charge consider the needed resources, both time and money, as too high. At the moment, the SMEs' strong standing in the market with special product knowledge and one-of-a-kind products allows the company to negotiate these customer demands.

The second company, a 1 st Tier automotive supplier, is merely ten years old and just recently reached the mark of 100 employees. The company grows significantly over the last years, doubling their production facilities since 2007. Their main products are impellers for turbo chargers for the automotive industry which they produce in large numbers. The company has up-to-date machinery, high level of automation and prides itself with the high quality of their products. The focus on quality leads to a 100% control of the products at the end of the manufacturing process and additional checks after specific process steps. As the company grows and the output increases, the company experiences that their processes become more complex and are not transparent any more. The company generates a big load of data during the manufacturing process but is as of today not able to fully utilize this potential. The executives slowly acknowledged the problem, especially thinking about the future under the promise of further growth and even higher quality requirements from the customers' side and see the need to improve their information management system. The challenge is, with company and all white collar personnel running at full capacity, to find a way and the time to assess the needs and current condition as well as the future dimensions of the information management system and create an implementation plan.

The experiences of projects with these companies confirmed the observation derived from literature presented at the beginning of the section. In the following sections, an insight on information management in a manufacturing environment is given, also supported by findings of the practical projects with the SMEs.

Information Management in Manufacturing SMEs

There are numerous benefits that result from implementing a functional information management system. For a manufacturing company being able to do that, it first has to be capable to track and trace individual products, or at least products on batch level throughout their manufacturing processes. This already implies a major challenge for some manufacturing SMEs. At the companies introduced in section two, it is not possible to track an individual product over the whole chain and attach measuring data at different steps to it. Interestingly, the second company was at the beginning convinced that they are capable of at least tracking batches throughout their manufacturing process but a closer analysis resulted in various pitfalls changing the original order along the process. One of these pitfalls was just the automated loading of machining robot where always three parts stayed in the cell when the batch was changed.

A general benefit of tracking individual products is that companies can combine relevant product and process information and put it to use later. In the manufacturing of small batches or even single products this offers the advantage of always being able to check what process steps the product already passed and what parameters have been used. This can be the basis for an in-process adjustment of parameters based on the product state before each process step to increase quality in terms of reducing scrap and rework. Other benefits include, for example, proof for demanding customers, efficient product life cycle management and feedback in case of product failure.

When thinking of information management in manufacturing SMEs, one of the major points is that the information processes and the information management infrastructure have to be able to handle the increased information flow and put it to use. Or at least the existing IT infrastructure must offer interfaces to add additional solutions providing the information and interpret it in a valuable way. Engineering specific is the sheer amount and variety of possible information based on process parameters and changes of product state along the production chain. This is crucial as without a capable information infrastructure, the additional amount of information and data can cause more problems than doing well by overwhelming users and systems.

Another aspect to be considered thinking of information management is that manufacturing is a very physical and rough environment. Today, information is often still distributed on paper as screens and computers are considered too fragile by some workers. So it is not only the technical challenge but also a question of rising awareness and creating an open mindedness with the critical stakeholders.

Requirements and Recommendations for Implementation

Based on the two previous sections, general organizational and operational requirements and recommendations for successful implementation and utilization of a practical information management for manufacturing SMEs will be derived. The focus is on the technical perspective, especially processes and products, to support the SMEs. In this paper, organizational requirements also include strategic and financial aspects. It is a strategic decision of a company to enforce the implementation of an information management system which involves all hierarchical levels. The management of the SME must not only carefully consider if the company's organizational capability in terms of change management is sufficient but also consider partners and key customers, their demands, interfaces and interdependencies. Furthermore, such a complex project needs qualified personnel with a very specific skill set who can invest the needed time for the project. It is key that there is a commitment from corporate level towards the successful implementation. However, blue collar workers have to be involved as well. Especially in SMEs without highly bureaucratic structures and operation instructions, the blue collar personnel working in manufacturing often have their own unique knowledge and experience and finally will be the stakeholders actively using the newly implemented system on a daily basis. If they are not convinced of the benefits of the change, the success of the project is at risk.

The financial aspect cannot be valued high enough. SMEs with a tighter financial basis need to carefully consider the possible costs of the entire project including hardware, software, testing, training, maintenance etc before starting the implementation considering the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) over the whole life-cycle. A hands on blind start without a realistic estimation of the total costs can lead to chaos and leave the processes in worse conditions than before the implementation effort if the costs get out of hand and the project has to be abandoned half way.

The operational requirements mainly involve technical requirements and requirements concerning the existing information management including IT infrastructure. On the operational level, a basic and very important requirement is to have transparent processes. This requirement is crucial as without knowledge of the own processes, no serious plan can be developed and a successful implementation is off to a bad start. Furthermore, the own products and the information involved to describe these products during the manufacturing process have to be assessed carefully. The product state based view can offer a valuable concept to structure and quantify the information needs on a process and product level [START_REF] Wuest | State of steel product in industrial production processes[END_REF][START_REF] Irgens | Product state based view and machine learning: A suitable approach to increase quality?[END_REF].

Fig. 2. Main Aspects of the Product State Based View

Fig. 2. provides an overview how the information can be structured through the product state based view. Number one in the figure indicates that the whole manufacturing process has to be considered even so not all process steps take place in one location. In that case it is necessary to think about physical and virtual interfaces between department or company boarders. The physical product (number two) is in the center of the concept. The flow of the physical product is one directional and at each process step value is added to the product and such the product state (number three) changes.

The product state compromises all information of the product needed for a successful operation of manufacturing, and thus value adding, processes to reach the desired quality. The product states have descriptive characters and are interdependent to each other. The surrounding information management system (number four), integrates the process (number one) and product (number two/three) information, processes the information if needed [START_REF] Irgens | Product state based view and machine learning: A suitable approach to increase quality?[END_REF] and distributes it to the right addressee. Additionally, stakeholders have to be aware of existing capabilities and the available IT infrastructure. It is important to carefully assess and plan the integration of the new system in the available infrastructure. This is challenging for SMEs with their diversified IT solutions and small IT departments as they might need to add additional functionalities to existing systems and at the same time consult different software providers. To assess the dimension of the planed system, the content, the data and information attached to the product at different stages have to be clear. In this case, a consistent application of the product state based view and thus assessment of the relevant information of the product and process in combination with logistics key performance indicators can help to estimate the dimensions realistically. This part is essential, since it is the basis for developing and dimensioning a possible IT solution.

Conclusion and outlook

This paper gave an insight on the characteristics of manufacturing SMEs. Therefore, an example of two manufacturing SME from the automotive industry were presented.

Following the examples, information management in general was elaborated on. Finally, requirements and recommendations for manufacturing SMEs implementing an information management system were offered. The manufacturing industry is without a doubt a very challenging environment for implementing information management. But there are without doubt numerous benefits of having an integrated information management system for manufacturing SMEs. If a company has a clear vision of its goal and takes the right precautionary measures, the implementation of information management can increase the competitiveness and strengthen the ties to collaboration partners. But these benefits do not come free of charge. The most significant requirement is transparency of the own processes and products. Also the available IT infrastructure and IT competence within the company have to be considered carefully. The SME has to be able to judge its own capabilities (human, knowledge and finance) unbiased.

In a next step the product state based concept will be developed further. Within this approach, a special focus will be laid on illustration of manufacturing process chain wide interdependencies on the product state characteristic level and derive information needs from customer specifications.

Table 1 .

 1 Advantages and Disadvantages of SMEs compared to larger companies[START_REF] Donath | Methode zur Einführung der RFID-Technologie in KMU[END_REF][START_REF] Wagner | Qualitätsmanagement für KMU: Qualität sensibilisieren, realisieren[END_REF][START_REF] Allan | A FRAMEWORK FOR THE ADOPTION OF ICT AND SECURITY TECHNOLOGIES BY[END_REF]20]

	Advantage	Disadvantage
	High flexibility	Less financial resources
	Less bureaucratic (informal)	Less human resources (e.g. for supporting
		activities)
	Strong ties to customers and suppliers	Often conservative and patriarchic structures
	Often low fluctuation	Strategy often dictated by strong patriarch
	Strong focus on customer needs	Dependent on few knowledge carriers
	Often inimitable knowledge and experience	Often no strong links to external partners for
	in special area (hard to replace)	knowledge transfer (e.g. universities, re-
		search institutes)
		No systematic human resource development

Acknowledgement. This work has been partly funded by the European Commission through ICT Project COIN: Collaboration and Interoperability for networked enterprises (No. ICT-2008-216256). The authors wish to acknowledge the Commission for their support.


Hirpa G Lemu
email: hirpa.g.lemu@uis.no

Safet Kurtovic

3D Printing for Rapid Manufacturing: study of dimensional and geometrical accuracy

Keywords: 3D printing, rapid prototyping & manufacturing, printing accuracy

3D printing (3DP) is one of the innovative developments in rapid prototyping (RP) technology. The goal of the initial inception and progress of the technology was to assist the product development phase of product design and manufacturing. The technology has played an important role in educating product design and 3D modeling because it helps students/designer to visualize their design idea, to enhance their creative design process and enables them to touch and feel the result of their innovative work. This paper presents the results of the study done on the in-built potentials and limitations of 3DP technology when used for rapid manufacturing purposes.

Introduction

Rapid prototyping (RP) technologies are nowadays widely applied for production of parts that are based on additive fabrication principles. The technology integrates key disciplines and sets a different approach to the traditional procedure from design to manufacturing where 3D physical model of any shape directly from a Computer aided design (CAD) model is built layer by layer. As one of the leading RP technologies, the inception and development of 3DP technology has highly contributed in the product development phase of a product. Among others, the technology provides a unique opportunity to control the material composition [START_REF] Hopkinson | Rapid Manufacturing: An Industrial Revolution for the Digital Age[END_REF][START_REF] Jackson | Modeling and Designing Functionally Graded Material Components for Fabrication with Local Composition Control[END_REF][START_REF] Cho | A Dithering Algorithm for Local Composition Control with Three-dimensional Printing[END_REF] of the product by jetting different powder-based materials from different nozzles. The technology is playing an important role in educating product design and 3D modeling because it helps students/designers to visualize their design idea and to enhance their creative design process. It stimulates innovative work because it enables designers to touch and feel the result of their idea. It simplifies communication between different actors of a product, even with nontechnical ones. Further, it enables to develop prototypes at a comparatively high speed and low cost. The development of many other capabilities and techniques such as selective use of different materials, suitable post treatment (PT) techniques and color printing capabilities have opened many and diverse fields of applications. These include pattern making, design aids for tooling equipment, anatomical modeling and prototyping of human organs and implants, reconstructive surgery aids and others. Emerging new applications are also enabling 3DP machines to satisfy further scientific and engineering needs such as molecular modeling and the presentation of the results of finite element analysis (FEA). The biomedical area represents a typical example where integration of 3D modeling, 3D printing and FEA play a significant role in the future (Fig. 1). As physical testing of prostheses is demanding, full FEA in this area can open opportunities to apply the gained knowledge on new designs. In recent years, the application of RP technology in medical area has grown and a new discipline, known as medical rapid prototyping (MRP) is in the making [START_REF] Hieu | Medical Rapid Prototyping Applications and Methods[END_REF]. The advance in this direction will involve manufacture of accurate 3D physical models of human anatomy derived from medical image data.

Another potential area is integration of advanced 3D modeling technologies with thermal and flow analysis through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. This enables application of advanced solid modeling techniques such as NURBS to improve the shape for aerodynamic performance. The prototype can easily be built in 3DP, without tooling, and digital or physical testing enables integration of advanced 3D modeling, 3D printing as well as digital and physical testing. Some researchers indicate, however, that this technology as a rapid manufacturing tool remains at present more of a goal than reality for the industry [START_REF] Dimitrov | Advances in Three Dimensional Printing -State of the Art and Future Perspectives[END_REF].

Based on the huge potential that 3DP technology can play in the future to realize true RP&M, many 3DP products with varying capabilities are now available on the market. One of the most future oriented 3DP technologies is marketed by Z-Corporation (Z-corp.) that is based on MIT's ((Massachusetts Institute of Technology) ink jet technology. This 3DP variant is classified as a typical "concept modeler", a low-end system, and represents the fastest RP process. It is rapidly spreading worldwide and it has become the third most widely used layered manufacturing equipment within three years of its early market life [START_REF] Bak | Rapid Prototyping or Rapid Production? 3D Printing Processes move Industry Towards the Latter[END_REF].

On the other hand, the availability of diverse technologies in 3D printing has created certain level of challenge for the user because of varying capabilities and limitations to a particular need. Literatures published within the last decade indicate that complexity of part geometry, material used in the prototyping model, compatibility with 3D CAD models and other technical aspects still need in-depth study. The major problems focused in those recent researches include: accuracy and limited availability of materials [START_REF] Levy | Rapid Manufacturing and Rapid tooling with Layer Manufacturing (lm) Technologies, State of the Art and Future Perspectives[END_REF], porosity [START_REF] Dimitrov | Investigating the Achievable Accuracy of Three Dimensional Printing[END_REF], and surface finish [START_REF] Karapatis | Direct Rapid Tooling: A Review of Current Research[END_REF]. These limitations can result in limited range of mechanical properties. Additional research issues of 3DP at current stage involve part size and profile (including thickness), compatibility with 3D CAD models and other computer aided tools, application ranges and customer satisfaction.

Our in-house experience with the use of Z510, one of the latest machines from Zcorp., also indicates the need for further research to clearly identify the potentials and limitations of this technology. The study partially presented in this paper is aimed to build a full capability profile of 3DP technology including dimensional and geometrical accuracy, data transfer compatibility, surface roughness, build time and strength (in terms of wall thickness) of this technology. In the end, the accumulated knowledge from such studies will contribute in classification of the 3D printing qualities in accordance with international standards.

Brief Description of the Z510 3DP and the Printing process

The study reported in this article is based on the capabilities and limitations of Z510 3D printer (3DP). This machine was selected because the CAE laboratory of the University of Stavanger owns the machine. The part building method using RP technologies has a series of important features or procedures (Fig. 2) that are in general almost identical for all RP machines. All of the technologies require input of a solid model from a 3D CAD system, usually as slices. The designed model from a CAD system is then tessellated and exported to a suitable file format. With its development roots in the 1960s, STL-format is the current industry standard for facetted models. The STL file represents the model using information about the coordinates and outward surface normal of triangles. At this phase, the technology integrates CAD and CAM (computer-aided manufacturing) avoiding elaborate process planning and machine set up activities.

When the part model is ready in the printing machine, two important processes take place upon pressing the start button: (1) the software calculates how the layers look like for the model and (2) printing starts when five layers are calculated. This is one of the features of 3DP that makes it best in terms of the building speed. The manufacturers claim that 3DP from Z-corp is 5 -10 times faster than other RP technologies. The machine uses a default layer thickness of 0.1016 mm; if not a particular layer thickness is selected by the operator.

Fig. 2. Common features or procedures of RP technologies

Fig. 3. Coordinate system definitions and components of the part building area in 3DP

Figure 3 shows the definition of the coordinate systems and the important components in the part building area. By convention, the data slicing takes place in the X-Y plane and the part is built in the Z direction. The movement along the X-axis is designated as the slow speed axis and its task is to lay the binding materials. The Y-axis, on the contrary is a high speed axis. These two movements cover the 2D geometry of the development area of the model. The volume is then defined by the vertical movement of the building chamber corresponding to the layer thickness.

As illustrated in Figure 3 (right), the printer performs 5 different operations in the process of printing (adding a layer of powder).

1. Lowering the powder chamber 2. Moving the printhead back the powder chamber 3. Lifting the powder chamber 4. Lowering the building chamber and 5. Distributing the powder from the powder chamber to the building chamber. Some 3DP machines need warming up to 38 0 C so that the binding material sets quickly. Latest machines, such as Z510 -the one available in our laboratory, however, do not need this. It warms up after the model is developed so that it can cure.

Tests and Materials

There are many possible sources of surface inaccuracy of products produced by 3D printing process. For instance, error in data exchange process at preprocessing, part positioning and layer thickness at processing, and finishing works or post print operations at postprocessing phase can be mentioned. Closer observations show that achieving accuracy as specified by manufacturers is not always an easy task. Based on the experience of the existing limitations and supported by indications from the literature study, some test cases were identified. This paper presents the tests done on the following selected cases:

• influence of file transfer formats on part accuracy,

• achievable accuracies such as flatness and surface finish and • minimum wall thickness. Z510 uses mainly four powder materials. The main powder material used in the tests conducted as part of this study is ZP 131, high performance composite powder that is material of choice for color printing. The other three materials, i.e., elastomeric material, ZP14 Investment casting material and ZCast 501 Direct metal casting material, are considered as special material types for prototyping parts with specific need.

Discussion of Test Results

Influence of File Transfer Formats on Part Accuracy

All RP machines by default use STL (standard template library or streriolitography file format). Observing inaccuracies compared with manufacturer specifications, a comparative study between the data transfer formats was proposed. The rationale to make this test is also that STL file format is an old file transfer format from 1970's that has been used to describe straight lines and planar surfaces. The format cannot represent curved surfaces exactly. Z510 supports four file formats: STL (standard), VRML, PLY and 3DS. The CAD system used for 3D modeling of the part (Solid Edge) on the other hand supports, among other neutral file formats, the STL and VRML file formats that are compatible with 3DP. For this test, a 3D model was developed (Fig. 4(a)) with intentionally introduced features such as cylindrical and prismatic holes with different size and curved external edges. The same 3D model was transferred to 3DP software using the two file formats. The printed prototypes are shown in Fig. 4

(b) and (c).

Geometrical deviation: The difference in geometrical deviation between the two printed models is clearly visible with a naked eye. The inaccuracy in the cylindrical (hole) surface, i.e. roundness and the curved edge indicates that the models built using STL file transfer are less accurate than those built from VRML files. The VRML file format without exception produces circular features with better accuracy because it approximates curved edges with finer chords resulting in better circularity or profile form accuracy. The accuracy improves when the radius of the curve/circle decreases.

Dimensional deviation: Dimension of models built from each file format were measured and compared with the original dimensions in the CAD model. The results of selected dimensions are shown in Fig. 5 together with tabulated dimensions. Apart from a couple of exceptions, the results show that interior dimensions shrink, while exterior dimensions expand in all directions. This indicates that the material volume increases in both cases. The ZPrint software has a function known as anisotropic scaling with a scaling factor between 0.8 and 1.2 that is intended to compensate for this material volume deviation particularly in experience based generalized scaling. Otherwise, the final product should undergo post print operations such as grinding, cutting or drilling Though STL file format is the default file transfer format for 3DP and many other data exchange processes, this study reveals that it is not as good as the VRML format in terms of dimensional and geometrical accuracy. This obvious drawback puts a question mark on the possible use of this technology for rapid manufacturing purposes.

Test for Achievable Surface Flatness

As mentioned earlier, printing in 3DP is done without support structures, i.e. the under laying powder supports the built model. This, on the other hand, influences the accuracy on surface flatness. Though the printing temperature is not so high to create significant thermal deformations, moderately good flatness requirement for relatively thin features may not be expected.

For this test, a simple thin plate of size 100 x 120 x 8 mm was printed and the flatness accuracy was measured using a dial indicator (Fig. 6). The measured deviations show that the flatness error is highest in the X-direction, max. 0.95 and average 0.54 mm, while the deviation in Y-direction is max. 0.45 and average 0.36 mm. According to ISO 2768-2 the general geometrical tolerance for flatness recommended for this size is: H-class (fine) = 0.2 mm, K-class (medium) = 0.4 mm and L-class (rough) = 0.8 mm. This indicates that the 3DP process achieves a flatness accuracy that is almost equivalent to that of machining parts from steel materials.

Test for Achievable Surface Finish

Though Z-corp [11] claims that their 3DP machines are known to have ultra-smooth surface quality compared with other RP technologies, reports from some published data [START_REF] Stankiewicz | The Scope of Application of Incremental Rapid Prototyping Methods in Foundry Engineering[END_REF][START_REF] Frank | Rapid Prototyping and Engineering Applications, A Toolbox for Prototype Development[END_REF] understanding of the achievable surface quality in 3DP in general and using Z510 in particular, this test was intended to study the influence of post treatment such as hardening and polishing on the surface quality. Further, a surface quality comparison between a surface normal to the building direction (the XY plane) and the surface parallel with the part building direction (XZ plane) was done. Two parts -untreated part and a post-treated (hardened) part were tested. One face of each sample was polished while the rest were not. Among others, the following materials and equipment were used: polishing machine (Knuth-Rotor 2), epoxy (XD4360), hardener (XD4361) and Mitotoyo surfacetest-20.1.

The Mitotoyo surface test apparatus gives surface roughness qualities in three parameter values: R A , R Z and R T . In order to study the influence of the building orientation and the post treatment on the surface roughness, measurements were done on both as printed and post treated surfaces. The measurements were taken on the surface parallel to the building direction (on XZ-plane) and on one of the surfaces normal to the building direction (on XY-plane).

The test results for these samples are given in Table 1. Apart from few exceptions, the XZ-plane has the highest roughness level as expected. This is due to the stair-steps formed by the layer thickness while building. This roughness is expected to increase for curved edges and surfaces. The results also show that post treatment operations like hardening reduce the possibility to improve the surface quality by polishing.

Minimum Printable Wall Thickness

This test represents the most important part of this project where understanding the lowest possible part thickness that can be safely built is sought. This is especially important in cases of down scaling a prototype. The study was intended to reveal the possible risks of damaging the prototype under the following steps:

1. Processing (part building) 2. Withdrawal from the building chamber 3. Depowdering and 4. Post treatment of the prototype.

Two test models were drawn with features of different thickness (down to 1 mm) and located in the building chamber with different orientations as shown in Fig. 7 (L). The orientations were intended to study the significance of having the part against the XY-YZ walls and XY-XZ walls. All of the samples survived the first test (processing stage) while removal from the building chamber was not error free, at least needs extreme care for thin-walled parts. One example of a broken part under this postprocessing stage is shown in Fig. 7 (R). The general conclusion drawn from this test is that orientation of thin-walled parts is very important. With no doubt, resting the face of a thin-walled feature against the XZ-plane increases the risk of damaging the prototype while withdrawing from the building chamber. The study also shows that orienting the weakest geometry against the XY-plane avoids this problem, for instance buckling including due to the part's own weight. This consideration, however, contradicts with the orientation of a part in the building chamber with respect to an optimum printing time. In other word, the orientation that secures good part strength is not always the optimum orientation.

A case study: a typical wall thickness problem is of high concern when parts are downscaled to the size that can be printed by the 3DP (maximum 350 mm). Several cases were studied including a bobsled that was modeled in the CAD tool and printed. The model with maximum length of 3200 mm was downscaled to 10% size and this represents an obvious challenge for the wall thickness. As illustrated in Fig. 8, several weak points were observed that needed extreme care during postprocessing. Repeated trials indicate that experience in handling and positioning avoids some of the observed failures.

Conclusion

Initiated by in-house experience with the use of 3DP, the study on dimensional and geometrical accuracy of Z510 from Z-corp. has been reported in this article. The investigated limitations are of course not limited to this specific 3DP machine. Experimental tests on the influence of file transfer formats on part accuracy, dimensional and geometrical deviations and minimum wall thickness were studied. The research findings indicate that both dimensional and geometrical deviations take place on printed parts and the size of the deviations depends on the type of file transfer format. This study reveals also that STL format in general is not as good as VRML format. While the achievable flatness accuracy of 3DP in general is comparably as good as machining operations, the achievable surface roughness depends on the layer thickness and geometric form. The wall thickness is an important factor to be considered particularly when the part is to be downscaled. The study results indicate that manageable minimum wall thickness depends on several factors including the positioning of the part in the chamber. Acknowledgement: The technical support provided by Y. A. Amith is appreciated.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. Example of integrating 3DP with finite element analysis, adapted from [4]

Fig. 4 .Fig. 5 .Fig. 6 .

 456 Fig. 4. Test samples: (a) original CAD model (b) part built from STL file as input (c) part built from VRML as input

Fig. 7 .

 7 Fig. 7. Part orientation in building chamber (L) and an example of a broken part (R) under test

Fig. 8 .

 8 Fig. 8. Examples of inaccuracies and failures on printed bobsled

  indicate as this is not the case. Thus, in addition to developing better

	Dimension	CAD	STL	VRML
		model	model	model
	A	50.00	50.15	50.10
	B	Ø20.00	Ø19.55 Ø19.60
	C	10.00	9.95	9.80
	D	5.00	5.05	5.00
	E	Ø10.00	Ø9.70	Ø9.90
	F	Ø6.00	Ø5.65	Ø5.70

Table 1 .

 1 Measured surface roughness values (Ra) in[µm]

			As printed			Hardened
		Unpolished	Polished	Unpolished	Polished
	Plane XY	XZ	XY	XZ	XY	XZ	XY	XZ
	Sample	A1	B1	C1	D1	E1	F1	G1	H1
	Single measurement 7.76	17.74	13.99	9.73	9.84	21.63 0.34	8.7
	Average roughness 7.82	16.05	13.40	11.25	9.73	20.95 2.22 6.15