Luis M Camarinha-Matos

Ana Inês Oliveira

Filipa Ferrada

Supporting Collaborative Networks for Complex Service-Enhanced Products

Keywords: Collaborative Networks, Service-Enhanced Product, Consortia Formation, Collective Emotions

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

Introduction

The development of complex and highly customized products such as a solar power plant, an intelligent building, or a special purpose complex machine, typically require contributions from several stakeholders from diverse knowledge sectors. Greater levels of efficiency could be achieved when these contributors are organized under the form of a collaborative network in order to better integrate their parts. In fact, most companies in these sectors are small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which can only cope with the complexity of the projects and reach markets in different geographical regions if collaborating with others.

Seeking business opportunities in different geographical regions in these domains often requires the involvement of the customer (co-creation) and collaboration with local suppliers in those target markets [START_REF] Romero | Collaborative networked organisations and customer communities: value co-creation and co-innovation in the networking era[END_REF][START_REF] Afsarmanesh | ICT Requirements Analysis for Enterprise Networks Supporting Solar Power Plants[END_REF]. This need motivated the emergence of the term glocal enterprise, to reflect the idea of thinking and acting globally, while being aware and responding adequately to the local preferences and constraints.

Furthermore, a growing number of business services are needed in association with the various phases of the product life-cycle, which led to the notion of serviceenhanced product. For instance, in the case of solar energy, such business services can include: services for operation monitoring (energy monitoring, monitoring reports, system performance testing, site security, data analytics), preventive maintenance (panel cleaning, vegetation management, wildlife prevention, water drainage, retrocommissioning, upkeep of systems), corrective / reactive maintenance (on-site monitoring / mitigation, critical reactive repair, warranty enforcement), condition-based monitoring, other support (training, audit), etc. [START_REF] Epri | Addressing Solar Photovoltaic Operations and Maintenance Challenges -A Survey of Current Knowledge and Practices[END_REF][START_REF] Camarinha-Matos | Cloudbased Collaborative Business Services Provision[END_REF]. These services add value to the physical product, representing a great differentiation factor and creating space for new business opportunities.

With the exception of a few large companies, the market offer is rather fragmented while, from the customer side, there is a clear demand for the provision of integrated services (Fig. 1). The provision of integrated services also calls for collaboration among multiple stakeholders. What is a suitable platform and associated tools to support collaborative enterprise networks involved in the life-cycle of complex service-enhanced products? This work was performed in the framework of the European research project GloNet which addressed the development of an agile virtual enterprise environment for networks of SMEs involved in highly customized and service-enhanced products [START_REF] Camarinha-Matos | Collaborative Networks in Support of Service-Enhanced Products[END_REF].

The project developed a cloud-based system, which comprises a cloud-based platform offering multiple collaboration spaces [START_REF] Surajbali | A Cloud-Based Approach for Collaborative Networks Supporting Serviced-enhanced Products[END_REF], and a collaborative networking framework including functionalities for specification of products and business services, and management of collaborative networks (Fig. 2). This paper is mainly focused on the implemented subsystems for management of the various networks. Long-term strategic networks management. The main purpose of this sub-system is to promote preparedness of its members for collaboration [START_REF] Camarinha-Matos | Interplay of Collaborative Networks in Product Servicing[END_REF]. In the context of this network a growing number of service-enhanced products are created, leading to a product portfolio of the network.

Although this network is a typical virtual organizations breeding environment (VBE), the aim of supporting the glocal enterprise concept led to the involvement of the customer and other local stakeholders in the target market. In other words, for each target market the core VBE is extended with the inclusion of local members. In fact, the selection of partners for each goal-oriented virtual organization (VO) considers the extended recruitment space, as illustrated in Fig. 3. The functionalities developed for this component support the main steps illustrated in Fig. 4: members' recruitment, including basic management services of admission and withdrawal of members; members' profiling, with members and network profile and competencies definition, network performance management, among other functionalities; and VBE analysis, through services that enhance the VBE life-cycle, including functionalities for trust management among VBE members and assessment of the alignment of their value systems. Additional analysis tools could be plugged here through a web services interface.

Fig. 4 -Business ecosystem management

Virtual organizations creation and negotiation subsystem. As mentioned above, for the creation of VOs, members are first selected from the core VBE, but additional members can be added, namely local entities from the geographical region of the customer [START_REF] Oliveira | Electronic Negotiation Support Environment in Collaborative Networks[END_REF]. When an order for a new product or new integrated business service is received (the business opportunity that triggers the VO formation), the VO Planner initiates the creation process. This includes, among other steps, the detailed specification of the product or service order, the selection of the partners according to the necessary skills and competences, and the elaboration of the agreements and contracts that will regulate the operation of the VO. Fig. 5 summarizes the main steps of the consortium creation process:

Consortia generation. This step aims at choosing a suitable set of partners to form the consortium for the VO [START_REF] Oliveira | Electronic Negotiation Support Environment in Collaborative Networks[END_REF]. It considers the requirements for the new VO, which depend on the specification of the new product or service, namely the necessary competences the potential VO Partners need to have. This is done performing a match with the existing competences in the VBE to identify the members that are suitable candidates to be part of the VO [START_REF] Camarinha-Matos | Interplay of Collaborative Networks in Product Servicing[END_REF]. Then, a list of all possible VO combinations is generated automatically out of the members that can satisfy each goal. Furthermore, there is the possibility to manually impose "mandatory" or "preferred" partners in all possible consortia. Filtering and selection. In order to select the most appropriate consortium out of the list of previously generated consortia, the VO Planner can identify and assess, to certain extent, the risk level of each potential consortium [START_REF] Harland | Risk in supply networks[END_REF]. In the current implementation, the system can infer the alignment level of the value systems of potential partners, as well as their level of trustworthiness [START_REF] Camarinha-Matos | Collaborative Enterprise Networks for Solar Energy[END_REF]. Depending on the application domain, additional criteria could be added here. For instance, in the case of logistics-related goals, it could make sense to consider the geographical location of the potential partner. Nevertheless, the system provides a ranking of the potential consortia according to the selected criteria, being the final selection done by the human planner. Negotiation. After having selected suitable partners to form the consortium, it is also important to have a negotiation mechanism that supports the process of achieving agreements among them during the VO formation. These agreements will then be the basis for the governance principles of the VO during its operation phase. The implemented negotiation support functionalities facilitate the participation of multiple stakeholders in the negotiation of different subjects via a set of mechanisms that ensure the privacy and confidentiality ("virtual negotiation spaces (VNSs)") [START_REF] Oliveira | Electronic Negotiation Support Environment in Collaborative Networks[END_REF]. For each topic / clause that needs to be negotiated, the VO Planner can invite a subset of (potential) partners into a specific VNS. The agreement can be built following either a default or customized template.

Templates contain general information agreed by all involved partners, but also specific clauses agreed by a set of partners. The agreement is represented in the form of a readable document.

After the VO agreement is reached, the VO Planner can create a dossier comprising all relevant documentation related to the specific consortium agreement. This package of documents is stored in an electronic notary system to which all VO partners need to access in order to digitally sign the agreement. The existence of an e-notary system at the level of a VBE is particularly relevant in a glocal (multi-cultural) context in order to avoid future misunderstandings during the operation of the VO. The developed Electronic Notary and Conservatory Sub-system provides mechanisms for signing documents and the possibility of exchanging agreements-related documentation with warranty of authenticity and validity. Furthermore, it provides a safe archive for such documentation. In this sub-system, the following main concepts are used: Dossier: a collection or folder that comprises several documents. Only a limited number of users will have access to a dossier, and the access is managed by the owner of the dossier, i.e., the user who created it (typically a VO Planner). In other words, the dossier represents a set of documentation for a specific consortium agreement, that is, a package of documents that support the consortium agreement; Signature: referring to a digital signature of a document. A consortium agreement, in order to be valid, will be signed by all involved partners; and File Certification: confirming the validity of a document. An authorized VBE Member may verify if a certain file has maintained its integrity or if it has been deceived. Depending on the corresponding access rights, a user of the e-notary system is able to properly manage dossiers, sign and verify document signatures, etc. The sequence of use of these functionalities is illustrated in Fig. 6. For digital signatures and certification an asymmetric keys mechanism is used.

Supporting co-creation networks.

In order to facilitate co-creation / co-design processes, a collaborative environment for multi-stakeholder based design of new business services, the Services Co-Design Negotiation (CoDeN) sub-system, was developed [START_REF] Oliveira | Negotiation Support for Co-Design of Business Services. PRO-VE'14[END_REF]. The involved participants (including the customer) in this process are initially selected by the initiator of the co-creation process. Similar to the Negotiation support sub-system for VO creation (mentioned above), this sub-system is also intended to generate an agreement that represents all consensus reached on the characteristics of a new business service. However, in this case, the process of reaching consensus is based on the service design methodology [START_REF] Mager | Special issue editorial: Designing for services[END_REF] that serves as a guide for the negotiation.

As illustrated in Fig. 7,a The co-design involves thus a specialized iterative negotiation process, guided by the mentioned templates.

Supporting the emotional equilibrium of the network. The emotional equilibrium of a network contributes to supporting a healthy and sustainable collaboration among all the involved parties and in this way leverage the success rate of the collaborative network. Emotions play an important role in promoting the effective management of communications and interactions among participants, namely in what concerns dealing with soft issues such as inter-and inter-organizational abilities, problems in keeping team cohesion, leadership, decision-making, involvement of customers, potential conflicts resolution, etc. [START_REF] Bar-Tal | Collective Emotions in Conflict Situations: Societal Implications[END_REF][START_REF] Mackie | Intergroup Emotions: Explaining offensive actions in an intergroup context[END_REF]. Furthermore, it is assumed that emotions also contribute to the sustainability of the network, so the more positive the emotion is, the healthier the collaboration becomes and on the other hand, negative emotions constitute a risk factor [START_REF] Ferrada | An Emotional Support System for Collaborative Networks[END_REF].

In this context, an emotions-based supervision sub-system was also developed. This sub-system uses a collection of non-intrusive mechanisms to estimate the level of emotion of each member individually and of the collaborative network as a whole (collective emotion). Fig. 8 illustrates the adopted approach which comprises: a non-intrusive evidence gathering module that aims to collect the emotions' related data comprising both the member's and collaborative network's emotional information; an emotional reasoning module that uses the collected information and estimates (through a rule-based system): a) the members' emotional state, and b) the collective emotional state; the members' emotional state module shows all the corresponding evidences information and emotional state of the member; the collective emotional state module on its turn presents the evidences regarding the network as a whole and the collective emotional state; a recommendations' processing module that aims to give support to the network administrator by suggesting a plan of actions to enhance the collective emotional state of the network. These actions are merely suggestions and it is up to the administrator to put them in practice.

Member's emotional state

Evidence gathering

Nonintrusive

Collective emotional state

Past Current

Past Current

Emotional reasoning

Recommendations processing

Fig. 8 -Emotions support system approach All these sub-systems are part of the GloNet system, which provides a cloud-based collaborative environment and includes other functionalities developed by the other partners of the GloNet consortium, such as a product specification subsystem, a business services specification sub-system, sub-product / service recommendation sub-system, complex product portfolio repository, collaboration spaces, and workflow subsystem.

Validation

The developed functionalities and methodological guidelines were evaluated through the implementation of a realistic demonstrator in the solar energy sector. For this purpose, GloNet selected as case study the Charanka solar park in Gujarat, India, a contemporary project in which the iPLON partner participated in the Operations and Maintenance system. The Charanka project started during the early phases of GloNet, when relevant research results were not available yet, and thus it was mostly implemented through traditional methods in this sector. At that stage, only a small influence of GloNet could be noticed in terms of the use of the CNs concepts to help iPLON structure the various partnerships under the notions of VBE and VO. But the involved processes were essentially manual at that stage. Nevertheless, the available data, acquired experience, and lessons learned, that are recent and thus easily recalled, constituted an important basis to help assessing the potential impacts of adopting GloNet results in similar future projects. As such, the strategy was to use Charanka solar park as a reference case and to replicate, through the use of GloNet results, some relevant business scenarios selected from this case and to compare them with the traditional approaches (Fig. 9).

This case, where a European SME expanded its business to another continent in collaboration with local stakeholders, also provided insights on the implementation of the glocal enterprise concept. According to the assessment made by the end-users, the platform and collaboration support tools fit well the needs of the use case, although some improvements in the user interface style could be considered when evolving to a commercial product. Although the needed organizational changes are significant, the expected potential benefits are also very high, at least as it can be estimated at this stage. Furthermore, the conceptual framework for collaborative networks and service-enhanced products proposed by GloNet:

Offers SMEs the opportunity to implement new business models based on collaboration; Certainly requires a change in the mind-set of companies operating in the solar energy and intelligent buildings sectors, which are more used to sub-contracting relationships; this also requires an extensive training plan; Offers SMEs the possibility of jointly having a more agile response in dynamic market contexts; and Provides an effective way of implementing the glocal enterprise concept, allowing SMEs to expand into new markets in other regions. As part of the validation process, a group of external enterprises, i.e. members of the solar energy VBE (including about 40 enterprises), were invited to get a closer understanding of GloNet vision and solutions. This process involved a couple of training actions and an extensive workshop with demonstration of the implemented system. These external users were then invited to assess the various functionalities of the GloNet system. A partial example of their assessment is shown in Fig. 10.

Fig. 10 -Example of validation results

The collected opinions regarding the CN management subsystem show a good level of agreement with the proposed functionalities. The combination of VBE and VO concepts in the system was particularly appreciated by the users. Regarding the emotional support subsystem, the assessment was also globally positive although with some natural dispersion of opinions. The inclusion of "members' expectations" as inputs for the tool was particularly appreciated by participants.

Conclusions and Further Work

GloNet developed an integrated environment to support complex and highly customized products. Particularly in the case of solar power plants, the collaborative enterprises networking, the notion of glocal enterprise, and the focus on supporting multi-stakeholder integrated business services, appear as very promising for future developments in this sector. The solutions developed in GloNet and demonstrated in the implemented pilot confirmed this expectation, and proved a very good fit with the identified needs. Furthermore, the developed functionalities contributed to point out new directions for achieving higher levels of effectiveness in the core business processes. Of particular relevance to the end-users is the set of mechanisms, environment, and tools to support multi-stakeholder co-creation / co-innovation in collaboration with the customer and local entities close to the customer.

As future work, this use case also showed the need to further address the needs of multi-cultural business ecosystems involving members from different geographical regions.

Fig. 1 -

 1 Fig. 1 -The need for integrated business services In this context, there is a need to deal with different collaborative networks, operating at different stages of the life-cycle of the product and associated business services, which motivates the following research question:What is a suitable platform and associated tools to support collaborative enterprise networks involved in the life-cycle of complex service-enhanced products? This work was performed in the framework of the European research project GloNet which addressed the development of an agile virtual enterprise environment for networks of SMEs involved in highly customized and service-enhanced products[START_REF] Camarinha-Matos | Collaborative Networks in Support of Service-Enhanced Products[END_REF].The project developed a cloud-based system, which comprises a cloud-based platform offering multiple collaboration spaces[START_REF] Surajbali | A Cloud-Based Approach for Collaborative Networks Supporting Serviced-enhanced Products[END_REF], and a collaborative networking framework including functionalities for specification of products and business services, and management of collaborative networks (Fig.2). This paper is mainly focused on the implemented subsystems for management of the various networks.

Fig. 2 -

 2 Fig. 2 -GloNet system architecture

Fig. 3 -

 3 Fig. 3 -Extended VBE

Fig. 5 -

 5 Fig. 5 -Partners' selection and negotiation Fig. 6 -e-Notary services

Fig. 7 -

 7 Fig. 7 -Service co-design support

Fig. 9 -

 9 Fig. 9 -Demonstration and validation pilot

  Service direct contact and Service back office, to detect what should be the behaviour of the new business service staff; and Means and processes, to identify what else can be involved with the new business service.

			number of
	templates are used: stakeholders
	mapping, to identify the relevant
	stakeholders that have to be considered
	for direct and indirect contact with the
	new business service; service blueprint
	diagrams,	considering:	User,
	highlighting what the customer of the
	new business service does; Touchpoints,
	to identify the moments and places
	when the customer gets into direct
	contact with the new business service;

Acknowledgments. This work was funded in part by the European Commission through the GloNet project (FP7 programme), and in part by the Center of Technology and Systems and FCT-PEST program UID/EEA/00066/2013 (Impactor project). The authors also thank the contributions from their partners in the GloNet project.


João Bastos

Américo Azevedo

Paulo Ávila

Towards a Customer-Driven Value Chain Framework -A Set-Based Oriented Approach

Keywords: Collaborative Networks, Customer-Driven, Framework, Set-Based Design

In today's business, consumers are challenging manufacturers by increasingly demanding low volumes of innovative, fashionable and inexpensive products; adopting high quality standards; responding in smaller intervals of time, and with high configurability and parameterization. This omnipresent scenario poses challenging opportunities for collaborative networked organizations. The present paper addresses the main collaborative business processes tailored for responsiveness and efficient use of knowledge on customized manufacturing environments through a lean-based framework proposal for collaborative networks inspired in the Set-Based Concurrent Engineering (SBCE) methodology. In particular this work describes the ongoing implementation of the proposed concepts through a web-based collaborative portal.

Introduction

The recent decades have shown at manufacturing level an expansion of collaborative strategies addressing the small batches to lot one production of highly-customized complex products. This is especially critical for innovative and/or fashionable products with short to micro life-cycles. In fact, consumer needs and expectations are arising as challenging opportunities for worldwide manufacturing companies which are required to put more emphasis on the service levels they provide, by reducing response times and by tackling customers' specific demand needs of small series of innovative/fashionable inexpensive high quality products, in shorter periods of time.

Facing a competitive market, companies' managers are constantly challenged to reduce the lead time between technical or market opportunity arising and satisfying the customer need with full-rate production of a quality product. The time to market on the case of innovative and fashionable goods is a critical factor, since all competitors get access to new technical ideas and new market information at about the same time.

One other hand, with the increasing empowerment of the user/customer role, the design focus has been shifting from a designer-centered approach to a co-designing attitude in which the roles of the designer, the researcher and the 'customer' have been moving increasingly closer. The implications of this shift for traditional manufacturing networks are enormous. The current evolution in the design approach has a significant impact in the product configurations, product volumes and response time, changing the landscape of collaborative networking.

In order to conceive, design, develop, manufacture and supply such products, new approaches and underneath supporting services for collaborative networking are increasingly mandatory in order to companies succeed in addressing the market demand through customer-driven value chains.

This paper addresses the multidisciplinary complexity of customer-driven value chains creation for innovative/fashionable products, in particular, by tackling the main collaborative business processes tailored for responsiveness and efficient use of knowledge on customized manufacturing environments through a lean-based framework proposal.

The proposed framework extends the lean product development principles followed by the Toyota Motor Corporation and presented by D. Sobek as Set-Based Concurrent Engineering (SBCE) [START_REF] Sobek | Toyota's principles of set-based concurrent engineering[END_REF] to the presently growing and increasingly significant environment of Collaborative Networks (CNs).

This innovative lean-based framework is intended to cope with the challenges posed by the omnipresent consumers demand of products with manufacturing of low volume, high variability and increasingly reduced time-to-market expectations.

The remaining sections of this paper are organized as follows: primary the existing related literature and research questions are presented as background and research topics, followed by the presentation of the set-based principles in collaborative networks. Afterwards, the customer-driven value chain framework is portrayed. Finally, conclusions and future developments are presented regarding the framework instantiation and further improvement.

Background and Research Topics

The acceleration of globalization and rapid technological evolution are leading to an increased unpredictability and instability. The emergence of global and competitive markets are forcing the companies, especially in the case of SMEs, to adjust to this new aggressive environment in order to proactively respond to challenging market requirements with increased responsiveness and flexibility [START_REF] Zangiacomi | Reference Model Framework for Production of Small Series of Innovative and Fashionable Goods in Manufacturing Networks[END_REF].

This competitive reality is intensified by the fact that the demand of consumer goods, especially innovative and fashion products, have in the recent past forcing manufacturers into delivering an increased number of product variants with a dramatic reduction of products life-cycle. Furthermore, paradigms such as mass customization and personalization are forcing companies to increased flexibility in order to produce small batches, till one-of-a-kind product, to satisfy customer demand.

In many industries, an ever growing number of new products (often only incremented modified) are introduced within increasingly shorter time intervals. In many cases, product life-cycles have been cut to one third or even one fourth over the past decades [START_REF] Trinkfass | The Innovation Spiral: launching new products in shorter time intervals[END_REF]. Briefly, the modern business landscape is characterized by small batches, short to micro product life-cycles, fast-passed new product releases designed to attend increasingly knowledgeable, well informed, and demanding customers.

All these issues create a challenge for companies' managers: how to address this present-day consumers' demand for personalized value-added products, but also cope with it in terms of high quality levels, innovative functionalities and responsiveness?

Certainly, align with the objective to address this new customer demand challenges, there is a pressing need of new methods and tools for manufacturing value chains supported in the collaborative network organizational paradigm [START_REF] Camarinha-Matos | Collaborative networks: Value creation in a knowledge society[END_REF]. This new forms of networked organizations present a promising approach to deal with the need to customer driven focus, reduced time to market of new products and cost effective manufacturing in a cooperative and collaborative environment.

Customer-Driven Value Chains

Nowadays competition within the innovative and fashionable goods sectors is between global networks and one of the critical matters are on how to put and execute innovative managerial models and methods to provide and sustain collaborative practices, especially among SMEs, which represents the majority of companies in Europe [START_REF] Camarinha-Matos | The Role of Collaborative Networks in Sustainability[END_REF][START_REF] Dyer | The relational view: Cooperative strategy and sources of interorganizational competitive advantage[END_REF].

The most recent research in the topic of supply networks addressed distinct forms of business organizations that participate in value creation. They are distinguished for example, by the degree of virtualization or hierarchical structure (hierarchical vs. nonhierarchical networks), the value chain orientation (horizontal, vertical, lateral) and life span (long-term vs. short-term) [START_REF] Grefen | Dynamic business network process management in instant virtual enterprises[END_REF].

Research in collaborative networks of innovative and fashionable products have identified six key phases in order to organizations address a specific market need till final dispatch to the customer (see Fig. 1). It also have shown that each one of these phases present relevant challenges regarding their complexity, time constraints and resources consumption [START_REF] Bastos | Collaborative Networks Model for Clothing and Footwear Business Sector[END_REF]. In face of these critical impact phases, the prevailing market environment asks for flexible and reactive organizational structures which rapidly adjust to new manufacturing challenges and revise the business requirements accordingly. These new market characteristics are compelling manufacturing networks to embody shorter life-time existences and take advantage of new infrastructure technologies to support distributed decision making, information sharing and knowledge management [START_REF] Zangiacomi | Reference Model Framework for Production of Small Series of Innovative and Fashionable Goods in Manufacturing Networks[END_REF].

In order to answer to the consumer's pressing needs and expectations, the paradigm of customer-driven value chains is emerging in literature as a collaborative approach [START_REF] Childerhouse | Analysis and design of focused demand chains[END_REF][START_REF] De Treville | From supply chain to demand chain: the role of lead time reduction in improving demand chain performance[END_REF][START_REF] Piller | New directions for mass customization[END_REF]. Based on this new paradigm, new approaches to addressed and engage market demand are envisioned. These approaches are based not only on traditional sales distribution channels (as stores or sellers) but increasingly on an Internet mediated interaction with consumers covering aspects such as product codesign, product customization till final sale.

Exploratory work provided evidence to researchers that responsiveness is intrinsically related to competiveness. Namely, organizations can increase their ability to compete based on product innovation, low time to market, low price and high delivery dependability by increasing the firms' responsiveness [START_REF] Thatte | Competitive advantage of a firm through supply chain responsiveness and SCM practices[END_REF].

A direct outcome of firms and by extension collaborative networks responsiveness is the reduction of the time to market. The time to market is the lead time between a technical or market opportunity arising and satisfying the customer need with full-rate production or quality product. The time to market lead time is critical since all competitors eventually get access to new technical ideas and new market information at about same time. The winner is the one which is consistently faster than competition. As Li et al. states: "time to market is the ability of an organization to introduce new products faster than major competitors" [START_REF] Li | The impact of supply chain management practices on competitive advantage and organizational performance[END_REF]. In reality there is a extensive acknowledgment that time to market is a fundamental determinant for competitive advantage [START_REF] Holweg | An investigation into supplier responsiveness: Empirical evidence from the automotive Industry[END_REF].

According to Ward [START_REF] Ward | Lean product and process development[END_REF] the time to market can be decomposed into the sum of four periods: reaction time (period between the opportunity appearing and company decision to invest); exploration time (period which the development team explores alternative implementations); lock-in time (during which a final solution is detailed); and fix-up time (during which the company tries to deal with the problems aroused during the implementation of the solution) (see Fig. 2). [START_REF] Ward | Lean product and process development[END_REF]).

Fig. 2. Time to Market periods (based in

Inversely to the concept of 'time to market' there is the concept of 'market miss'. In reality, markets are missed because the development team fails to understand the customer, or because it is not innovative enough and therefore missing the customer needs on time or generating cost and quality problems [START_REF] Ward | Lean product and process development[END_REF].

Customarily, the development value stream inside companies or inside collaborative networks, produces operational value streams. Operational value streams run from suppliers to manufacturers, into product characteristics, and finally out to customers. Manufacturing units are the primary customers of the development value streams. Actuality, the development process only has value if it enables manufacturing operations to deliver better products to the final customer.

In conventional development processes the approach followed is the "waterfall" or "V" methodology. In this approach, starting from the concept specification, first it is designed the system, freezing the interfaces between the subsystems, then designed the subsystems, following a top down method.

Fig. 3. Waterfall or traditional approach

A similar "waterfall" approach is followed in the development process of collaborative networks. The initial definition of the business opportunity leads to the collaborative design of the product and subsequently to the process planning and the network configuration definition. The Fig. 3 presents the similarities between the product design process and the collaborative network formation process using the conventional "waterfall" approach.

Although abundantly used this "waterfall" approach, it presents for several researchers significant drawbacks. The followed top down approach means that critical systems decisions about module or subsystems interfaces are made on the basis of early insufficient data about what is possible. The resulting designs on products, processes or network configuration are usually distorted and inconsistent, leading to usually low levels of reutilization of parts, manufacturing systems or reconfiguration of networks [START_REF] Ward | Toyota, concurrent engineering, and set-based design[END_REF][START_REF] Liker | Involving suppliers in product development in the United States and Japan: Evidence for set-based concurrent engineering[END_REF][START_REF] Inoue | Collaborative engineering among designers with different preferences: Application of the preference set-based design to the design problem of an automotive front-side frame[END_REF].

In reality, is common for companies select suppliers through a bid process usually based on cost. This approach requires the release of product specifications or drawings. In many cases, this practice blocks the opportunity to identify what suppliers and partners can actually do, and therefore which system design, module specification or network configuration actually makes sense. Also, since the selection of network members is based in many cases on the basis of quotation, which is in many cases, is more a "promise" than a commitment.

A major consequence of the typical product development cycle based on the "waterfall" approach in supply networks is the occurrence of problems that are discovered late or in advanced phases of the design process. These problems force design loopbacks and network reconfiguration (see Fig. 4) which often consumes 50 to 75% of engineering resources [START_REF] Kennedy | Ready, Set, Dominate: Implement Toyota's Set-based Learning For Developing Products And Nobody Can Catch You Author[END_REF]. In summary, the traditional "waterfall" approach presents several drawbacks which include: inefficient use of resources due to the late problems discovery and the necessary loopbacks; the discard of knowledge due to the early product concept definition and design specifications which limits the network partners involvement and knowledge generation; and finally generates poor and unreliable solutions in terms of products and network configurations since it is based before the customer interests are understood.

Collaborative Issues

The recent past has shown an extraordinary expansion in collaborative networks and customer communities, especially due to the advances in ICT technologies, namely the internet support and social networking. Manufacturers, designers and customers are coming together in online communities, where they publish and share their products and services experiences, assessing the manufactures, vendors and service providers effectiveness [START_REF] Romero | Collaborative networked organisations and customer communities: value co-creation and co-innovation in the networking era[END_REF]. Increasingly, consumers are participating both in the front-end period with contributions to the idea generation and conceptualization, and the back-end period with involvement in the sketch, design and testing phases of new product development by enhancing the innovation process and thus co-creating value [START_REF] Nambisan | Designing virtual customer environments for new product development: Toward a theory[END_REF].

Simultaneously, due to the business increasing emphasis on technological innovation and the improvements in ICT technologies, a growing number of designers and network stakeholders use knowledge management tools and integrated systems to support innovation in collaborative design [START_REF] Reimer | Eule: a knowledge-based system to support business processes[END_REF].

The recent research shows that collaborative design is a knowledge-based path, requiring not only experts with knowledge and experience on different multidisciplinary areas, but also requiring the integration and coordination of the design and development phases of different actors. The challenge of providing reliable and fully operational collaborative design and knowledge management systems increasingly relies in integrated platforms but also practices and methods that promote and sustain the development coordinately [START_REF] Chu | Research on Knowledge Management of Collaborative Design[END_REF].

Set-Based Approach in Collaborative Networks

The concept of set based thinking was initially conceived by researchers from MIT and University of Michigan in the late 90's. Starting from Toyota's product development success practices, Allen Ward and is team developed what they latter labeled as SBCE (Set-Based Concurrent Engineering). From the field analysis conducted from D. Sobek simultaneously at Toyota Motor Company and Chrysler, it was evident that Toyota's product development practices surpass its competitors. Toyota is an industry leader in product development lead time and new product launches, while using fewer resources than its competitors. It has also shown consistent market share growth and profit per vehicle. Toyota never performs unplanned design loopbacks; had a systematic knowledge sharing across projects; achieve 80% engineering development value-added productivity (4 times the typical automobile manufacturer); and never misses its milestones dates [START_REF] Sobek | Principles that shape product development systems: a Toyota-Chrysler comparison[END_REF][START_REF] Kennedy | Product development for the lean enterprise: why Toyota's system is four times more productive and how you can implement it[END_REF].

Sobek summarized the definition of SBCE as engineers and product designers "reasoning, developing, and communicating about sets of solutions in parallel and relatively independent" [START_REF] Sobek | Toyota's principles of set-based concurrent engineering[END_REF]. In fact, according to the lean approach from Toyota, the most important input to production is knowledge. Starting from this paradigm, Toyota doesn't understood product development as a series of steps that result in a final product, but rather as an inclusive environment that yield a stream of products.

In order to acquire this 'knowledge breeding environment', the set-based approach followed by Toyota seeks continuously to obtain usable knowledge from the following sources:

• Integration knowledge -includes learning about customers, suppliers, partners, designers, the manufacturing network, the market;

• Innovation knowledge -the conception of new ideas and solutions;

• Feasibility knowledge -allows comprehension of the manufacturing constraints and capabilities enabling better decisions among the possible solutions. The effort to collect this knowledge starts immediately at the customer requirements early definition. Traditionally, using the "waterfall" approach, the customer requirements are frozen early, followed by a more detailed design and interface specification of the process. In contrast, in the set-based approach, Toyota builds a set of possibilities to satisfy their customer needs, and through a series of experimentation, combination and knowledge acquisition, they narrow the possibilities until arriving at final solution (see Fig. 5).

Fig. 5. Set-based development life-cycle

In order to the set-based development approach be successful, it relies on basic tools. As is usual in the lean philosophy, the tools should be simple and as possible rely on visual sense. Understanding and documenting technical knowledge in the case of the set-based approach is achieved in the forms of trade-off curves, checklists and limit curves. This form of representation naturally transfers tacit to explicit knowledge. Afterwards the approach integrates the knowledge through causal mapping for problem solving as depicted in Fig. 6. In summary, a set-based development approach enhances early and efficient learning so that enough information is attained before decision making. It requires collaborative learning and the involvement of many areas of expertise, but also the relevant stakeholders' commitment. In addition, by allowing delayed decisionmaking, until enough knowledge is acquired, enables wise decisions and not guessing. It also supports collaborative, converging decision-making by assuring that decisions in one area will not impact decisions on others areas.

Collaborative networks due to their intrinsic characteristics have immensely to benefit from this comprehensive approach proposed by the set-based development theory. The following chapter details how it is possible to apply set-based theory and methods in the collaborative networks environment through a customer-driven value chain framework.

Customer-Driven Value Chain Framework

The customer-driven value chain framework proposed aims to support companies in defining and forming collaborative networks for the demand of innovative and fashionable products with short life-cycles, small batch production and high configurability and parameterization. The framework is based on matching theoretical approaches from literature, namely the collaborative networks organizational paradigm and the lean approach of set-based design, but also, by matching practical requirements and constraints observed R&D industrial case projects namely on the textile, clothing and footwear industry (TCFI) sector.

The emerged needs from the analyzed business cases consider three different decision levels: strategic, tactical and operative. Figure 7 presents the overall conceptual view of this proposed framework mapping its decisional levels with the three framework structural dimensions considered, namely concepts, methods and tools. All these levels are instantiated along the dimensions and are embedded with the contributions from the collaborative networks paradigm and the lean set-based development system approach. The customer-driven value chain framework proposal relies on two basic elements: methods and tools. The methods define guidelines which are instantiated though the definition of the business processes mainly through BPMN notation. On the other hand, in order to support the realization of the designed methods, specific ICT tools based mainly in web-technology are required and have been under design and implementation.

A critical element of the framework is related with the functional view of the value chain formation. Namely the partner search can occur in different phases of the network business scenarios namely at:

• Strategic level: during definition of the product portfolio when the manufacturer needs to select strategic partners which will support both the conception/design and the manufacturing of the products.

• Tactical level: collaboratively participating in the detailed product design and the matching production process design.

• Operational level: since a customer order is collected, it is necessary to select amongst the partners those who will be set off for that specific order. For all of these three levels of collaborative work, different criteria and partner search capabilities shall be used, in order to ensure a comprehensive knowledge-based networked development engineering process.

In the case of the strategic level, the partner search is based on criteria for the identification and selection of partners based on a partner profile which summarizes the historical performance of the partner. The partner search at this early stage is useful in the definition of formal framework agreements. Namely, this formal agreements, bind partners in the commitment to reserve an amount of their production capacity for the production of a certain product along the production period and also participate in the early modular definition of products and respective interfaces. The selection of partners is based not only on the product characteristics but also on the historical performance of the partner in terms of quality, expertise, responsiveness and price. In this context, complementary indicators are flexibility and adaptability to requests from the focal company, which in summary is the ability to quickly reconfigure or set-up processes, to support new products variants or to vary quantities.

Concerning the tactical level, the collaboration is tighten and comprehensive. Each partner make drafts, simulate and conduct tests of solutions. The proponent of business opportunity expects that the network partners explore the trade-offs among different product requirements, support decisions with test data and validate designs by delivering fully functional prototypes as early as possible in the process. In some cases, partners are asked to several alternative prototypes and their tradeoffs. While in traditional companies, a supplier of a particular component is picked at an early stage, using the set-based approach, network participants are asked to present alternatives solutions, present the feasibilities of the solutions, and develop sub-systems in parallel with the focus company designers.

Regarding the operational level, the identification and selection of partners participating on specific order requests is accomplished during the production phase among the partners already selected for the specific product during the strategic and tactical collaborative design phases. On the other hand, the selection of the manufacturing network members is based primarily on costs and capacity availability for the time period required by the customer. Product characteristics, quality and other parameters are previously defined during network formation.

In order to test and validate the concepts presented in this new holistic framework, a specific set of methods, tools and technologies were defined with the purpose to support the formation and the operation of collaborative networks. This framework supports the production of innovative and fashionable products by enabling collaborative product design, distributed manufacture and delivery of functional products aligned with the consumer needs. A crucial element devised to set up these services for the supply networks stakeholders is the Collaborative Portal (see Fig. 8). The Collaborative Portal is a web-based front-end accessible through an Internet browser application. Using the Liferay web content management framework, the collaborative portal application server supports legacy integration and messaging with companies external applications such as MES and ERP's. Namely the collaborative portal supports the partner search functionalities for collaborative networks formation based on the following technological components and data:

• An ontology for the description of KPI concepts and relations; • A repository of skills and performance data;

• An collaborative algorithm to perform search and matching for network formation;

• Integration of set-based knowledge approach through the support of trade-off curves and causal maps definition;

• Integration with the ERP databases for collection and synchronization of relevant data;

• A tool for collaborative production of customer orders.

In order to support the operation formation of the collaborative network, the collaborative algorithm used to search and matching for network formation abides to the following steps:

• A potential customer present a business opportunity to the company frontoffice (focal company that identifies the business opportunity and hosts the interaction with the customer);

• Following the definition of the key requirements on the required custom made product, the front-office starts an elicitation process for the selection of the core-partners that will participate in the conception and design activities and are committed in responding to the overall business opportunity. This selection is based on their identifiable competencies, historical performance and availability through a knowledge based engineering approach;

• After the new product design activities, the required list of operations in the manufacturing network are instantiated by the focal company and core partners, added with a preliminary sequence plan with time restrictions (start and finish dates), which take into account the due date specified by the customer and aggregated capacities defined on each partner's profile (again using a knowledge based engineering approach);

• At the beginning of the planning phase, the criteria for partner selection is defined and agreed by the core partners and subsequently will be used to assess the final solution. The criteria take into account historical performance, time period availability and partner expertise and knowledge. Through a knowledge based engineering approach the defined criteria is imported to the partner search module;

• Several partners are asked to bid for several operations. The selection of the partners for the network configuration is accomplished through a multi-criteria process according to the guidelines of the set-based approach. This leads to a "rough" manufacturing plan that the focal company proposes to all the partners of the newly formed collaborative manufacturing network.

• Afterwards the initially "rough" plan is decomposed in a set of partial requests for quotation on each operation for each partner. Subsequently the partner performs a local time-framed analysis of their local capacity and availability in order to assess if it is possible to respond to the proposed dates and lead time.

Later a response quotation is created stating if the proposed plan is accepted with the cost of it, or replying with alternative solutions for the request both in terms of quantities or time constraints. Each response generates a possible plan that is assessed through a multi-criteria plan evaluation;

• The negotiation process continues until a satisfactory solution is achieved and a final manufacturing plan is accepted and implemented.

With this approach, it is addressed the role of the network ownership in an elegant way. Even though, the proposed approach relies on a centralized infrastructure when considering the information and communication technology elements, in reality, it promotes a decentralized approach on the formation and operation of the manufacturing network. This decentralized approach seeks to embody the concept of collaborative networks in which each partner is capable of proposing and participating actively on the characterization of each required product and/or operation, by working together with high degrees of integration and with matching goals.

In conclusion, through the development of the Collaborative Portal, the proposed framework offers a set of methods based on a web-based toolset designed to assist network managers and stakeholders in face of business opportunities to: create, update and reuse knowledge in development of new products using the set-based approach; to assist the configuration and the formation of collaborative networks by supporting the manufacturers in the identification and selection of the network partners; by supporting the operation of the network and the construction of manufacturing plans; and by assessing past and present network members performance through the computation of key performance indicators.

Conclusions and Future Developments

This work proposes a customer-driven value chain framework in order to create innovative collaborative environments which enable manufacturing companies to produce and supply small series of specialized and customized high value added products. The empirical origin of the framework empowers it to address the time to market issue for innovative and fashionable goods as a critical factor and guarantees full applicability of its guiding principles through the use of a lean inspired knowledge-based engineering approach.

In particular, the framework represents the translation of a methodology that can be instantiated to companies with the support of methods and tools for product codesign, collaborative process planning, networked manufacturing planning activities and assessment of partners' collaborative performance. The framework aspires to assist collaborative networks in understanding consumer needs, engage consumers in product co-design activities, assist in the creation and reuse of knowledge in the formation of the networks, encourage joint collaboration with network partners, and support innovative knowledge-based engineering design of new products through a lean inspired set-based approach.

The conceptual model of the framework, developed from previous and ongoing R&D projects with industrial partners has been applied to the real cases of TCFI industry. The instantiations made according to the three levels of the framework covered the definition of new business models and the description of the most relevant dimensions involved in its application concerning the strategy definition, the collaborative network formation, the product and process design process and the knowledge gathering.

Through the development of the collaborative portal, specifically a web-based toolset, it was possible to instantiate the framework concepts in a practical tool which supported the necessary mechanisms for network formation, the co-design approach, the knowledge gathering and reutilization, and the proficiency in designing and manufacturing of small lots of products. The fundamental objective of this collaborative portal was to offer an integrated set of collaborative services that support the network managers and stakeholders of innovative and/or fashionable product manufacturers with the necessary guidance and assistance to address the multitude of processes, activities, functions, decisions, relationships and interactions alongside with the products, services and information flows.

The proposed customer-driven value chain framework for small series production represents a contribution towards the definition of adequate business models addressing responsiveness and efficient use of knowledge on customized manufacturing and collaborative environments.

As future developments, it is intended for the research team to pursue the refinement of the proposed framework based on the contributions of the industrial users and the ongoing development of more efficient and reliable knowledge-based tools embed on the lean approach of set-based design in collaborative environments.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. Market oriented manufacturing network phases

Fig. 4 .

 4 Fig. 4. Loopbacks in "waterfall" collaborative networks formation

Fig. 6 .

 6 Fig. 6. Set-based development supporting tools

Fig. 7 .

 7 Fig. 7. Customer-driven value chain framework conceptual view

Fig. 8 .

 8 Fig. 8. Collaborative Portal Schema

Acknowledgments. This work was financed by the Project "NORTE-07-0124-FEDER-000057", financed by the North Portugal Regional Operational Programme (ON.2 -O Novo Norte), under the NSRF, through the European Regional Development Fund, and by national funds, through the Portuguese funding agency, FCT -Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia.


Luís C S Barradas
email: claudio.barradas@esg.ipsantarem.pt

Eduarda Mendes Rodrigues
email: eduardamr@acm.org

João J Pinto-Ferreira

Dimq

Supporting Collaborative Innovation Networks for New Concept Development through Web Mashups

Keywords: collaborative innovation networks, learning, web mashups

The new concept development is a critical stage of the innovation process that can be seen as a new knowledge creation process. This paper presents a new approach and a software tool for a collaborative new concept development. Our approach considers Collaborative Innovation Networks as ecosystems for new knowledge creation and integration, and Web Mashups as supporting platforms for the development of virtual co-learning and knowledge co-creation environments. The achieved results confirm the utility and efficacy of the software tool and allow foreseeing its suitability for use in educational contexts.

Introduction

Innovation plays a central role within businesses because it is seen as a way of sustainable competitive advantage creation. Initially rooted in R&D and based only on organizations' internal knowledge, the innovation models have evolved to the current open and networked models. Today, the locus of innovation is no longer the individual or the organization, but, increasingly, the network where the firm is embedded [START_REF] Nair | Networking, Innovation and Innovative Culture[END_REF]. External socio-economic agents such as clients and users of products and services are significant sources of knowledge, especially in the Front End of Innovation (FEI). User communities are an important locus of innovation and can increase the productivity in the development, test, and diffusion of innovations. Information Technologies (IT) and the Web 2.0 have come promote and facilitate the creation of innovation communities. User Innovation Networks, Peer Production, Community-Driven Innovation or Crowdsourcing, are terms often used to describe the innovation by virtual user communities. Table 1 presents a summary of IT tools that operationalize the mechanisms [START_REF] Piller | Open Innovation with Customers -Foundations, Competences and International Trends[END_REF] typically used to acquire user's knowledge for innovation. On the one hand, current approaches are not entirely effective because they limit user participation to idea generation and design of simple products. On the other hand, the supporting IT tools may not also be totally efficient in knowledge structuration and systematization, two key requirements for easy knowledge transfer [START_REF] Barradas | Co-criação e Sistematização de Conhecimento no Front-End de Inovação para a Criação de Novos Conceitos, no contexto da User Innovation[END_REF][START_REF] Standing | How can organizations use wikis for innovation?[END_REF]. Moreover, these tools are not entirely effective in the exploration of the tacit knowledge latent in people's mind. The linear text format typically used to express ideas makes difficult the establishment of connections between ideas. [START_REF] Piller | Open Innovation with Customers -Foundations, Competences and International Trends[END_REF][START_REF] Standing | How can organizations use wikis for innovation?[END_REF] In the contemporary context, the integration of external and internal knowledge to organizations through collaborative approaches is a critical factor for successful innovation. Thus, a collaborative model that integrates clients, innovative users and partners in the development of new concepts can increase the chances of creating products or services commercially attractive. Notwithstanding, the integration, absorption and application of this external knowledge require mastering a set of dynamic capabilities where the absorptive capacity (learn, integrate and apply the acquired knowledge) plays a central role. Firms with a higher absorptive capacity show a strong capacity of learning with their partners.

This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 presents some background concepts. Section 3 presents our approach and a software tool for a collaborative new concept development. Section 4 presents tests and results. Finally, Section 5 presents the conclusions.

Collaborative Innovation Networks, Knowledge Dynamics, and Web Mashups: Background Concepts

Collaborative Innovation Networks

A Collaborative Innovation Network (COIN) [START_REF] Gloor | Swarm Creativity: Competitive Advantage through Collaborative Innovation Networks[END_REF] is a social construct that is used to describe innovative teams or groups. COINs are powered by swarm creativity -their structural mechanism -and are defined as auto-organized cyber teams of automotivated people that share a common vision and use the Web to collaborate, sharing ideas, information and work, aiming to create something new. The underlying concept builds on the premise that, the creative production that results from the open share of ideas and work within a group, is exponential greater than the sum of individual creative production of each element of the group [START_REF] Gloor | Swarm Creativity: Competitive Advantage through Collaborative Innovation Networks[END_REF][START_REF] Gloor | The Coming World of Swarm Creativity[END_REF]. In fact, the underlying premise is tightly related to the foundations of the Collective Intelligence (CI) concept. COINs are the core of a knowledge ecosystem that encompasses some other virtual collaborative communities (learning and information), through which the generated knowledge flows until reaches the virtual world. They can emerge spontaneously outside or within firms. Internal COINs can cross firm's boundaries and include external members and even other firm's members. Thus, a COIN can be considered, in a natural way, a productive innovation ecosystem powered by CI that leverages and integrates external and internal knowledge to firms. Under this view, COINs can work as enablers or facilitators of the absorptive capability in organizations.

Knowledge Dynamics and Learning

In knowledge management (KM) related literature [START_REF] Von Krogh | Enabling Knowledge Creation: How to Unlock the Mystery of Tacit Knowledge and Release the Power of Innovation[END_REF][START_REF] Nonaka | The Concept of 'Ba': Building a Foundation for Knowledge Creation[END_REF], knowledge is commonly classified along two dimensions [START_REF] Polanyi | The tacit dimension[END_REF]: tacit knowledge (TK) and explicit knowledge (EK). TK is personal, context-specific, composed by intuitions, mental models unarticulated or technical competencies. EK is articulated, codified and can be transmitted in natural or symbolic language and computationally processed [START_REF] Nonaka | The Concept of 'Ba': Building a Foundation for Knowledge Creation[END_REF].

Knowledge creation is a complex social process that involves the acquisition, replacement and reconfiguration of existing knowledge structures in entities (individuals, groups or organizations). The SECI model [START_REF] Nonaka | The Concept of 'Ba': Building a Foundation for Knowledge Creation[END_REF] explicitly addresses the social nature of knowledge creation dynamics and comprises two dimensions: (1) epistemological, which describes TK to EK conversion and vice versa; (2) ontological, which describes knowledge transformation and flow between individuals groups and organizations. Thus, knowledge creation is a spiral process that builds on four stages of knowledge conversion (TK EK; EK TK): Socialization; Externalization; Combination and Internalization. Socialization is a social process and consists of sharing TK through communication. Externalization is an individual process and refers to the expression and translation of TK into tangible media such as text, concepts or models (EK). Combination is a social process and consists in the conversion of EK into more complex sets of EK by means of sorting, combining, adding and categorizing. At last, Internalization is an individual process that involves the conversion of newly created knowledge (EK) into TK through reasoning and reflection, i.e., learning. This process is iterative and takes place in a shared place known as ba that defines the context in which knowledge is created.

Individual learning occurs in the Internalization stage. Group learning occurs in the Socialization stage. Once internalized, the explicit knowledge becomes part of the individual's knowledge base and becomes an asset for the organization.

Web Mashups as Learning and Knowledge Management Supporting Tools

The openness and participatory nature of Web 2.0 changed the way that people use the Web allowing peer production, sharing and collaboration harnessing CI. Users, prior content consumers become content producers. Rapidly, the web became a huge repository of information and knowledge (opinions, know-how, etc.) in the form of knowledge artifacts. An intrinsic feature of Web 2.0 applications is the openness of their APIs, which allows the development new applications based on those exposed interfaces. These are known as Web Mashups -composite Web applications that allow extend original functionalities or the combination of data from different sources into a new presentation, giving rise to new sets of data, information and knowledge representations. Web Mashups have been exploited in support of Web-based learning and KM. As supporting platforms for learning contexts, Web Mashups are capable to integrate and enable the learning functions that the learning process depends on [START_REF] Boss | Power of the Mashup -Combining Essential Learning with New Technology Tools[END_REF].

In the scope of education, several studies [START_REF] Drachsler | ReMashed -Recommendations for Mash-Up Personal Learning Environments[END_REF] showed the benefits of Web Mashups for the construction of Personal Learning Environments. In the scope of KM, the literature shows practices of analysis [START_REF] Weber | Investigating the suitability of mashups for informal learning and personal knowledge management[END_REF] and attempts of use of Web mashups in the development of KM tools [START_REF] Bitzer | Mashups as an Architecture for Knowledge Management Systems[END_REF]. These platforms provide a solid support for personal KM and informal learning [START_REF] Weber | Investigating the suitability of mashups for informal learning and personal knowledge management[END_REF][START_REF] Bitzer | Mashups as an Architecture for Knowledge Management Systems[END_REF].

Supporting Collaborative Innovation Networks for New Concept Development trough Web Mashups

Supported by the concepts presented in the previous section, we derived a conceptual framework (Fig. 1) for the development of new concepts in FEI, harnessing CI of COINs. The framework assumes the new concept development process as a new knowledge creation process [START_REF] Barradas | Mashup Enabled Dynamic Capabilities in the Fuzzy Front-End of Innovation[END_REF] and the Web as a vast repository of individual knowledge representations in the form of knowledge artifacts. data, etc.). Web knowledge artefacts can be manually or automatically selected and aggregated and then manually combined and recombined (mashup) giving origin to new and more complex knowledge artifacts (Combination). The analysis and reflection on the conceptual structure collaboratively created, promote knowledge endogenization (Internalization), i.e., learning. The process is iterative and stops when a common understanding about the new concept is reached, which can be translated as new knowledge that results from the CI of COIN members. This new knowledge can, in fact, promote the organizational learning once it may help improving organization's technology, processes and structure and consequently, acquire market competitive advantage.

A Web-based Software Tool for New Concept Development

The conceptual framework provided a base for the development of a collaborative Web-based software tool aiming to support COIN's activities in the new concept development in the FEI. The tool builds on a set of ontology-based knowledge management services [START_REF] Barradas | Deriving an Ontology for Knowledge Management in Collaborative Innovation Networks[END_REF] that provide an effective management of COINs' activities and resources. The system relies on a multi-layer modular architecture (Fig.

The Mashups Development Process

The mashup development process is performed in two levels (Fig. 3). The first level (low level) is supported and operationalized by the Mashup Middleware which establishes an interface between data sources and data presentation by providing data access and data pre-processing. Data pre-processing can be simple consisting of data cleaning and filtering followed by data structuring in a normalized format; or it can be far complex involving data acquisition from different sources, data cleaning, data filtering, data integration/combination through union, join or sort operations and subsequent data structuring in a normalized format. This subsystem is supported by an open mashup platform known as Enterprise Mashup Platform that allows describing low-level mashups in EMML (Enterprise Mashup Markup Language), an XML dialect. The module provides multiple data access methods (REST, WS, JDBC, and POJO), supports multiple data formats (XML, JSON e Java Objects) and several data processing methods (EMML flow control structures, XPath, and JavaScript). EMML mashups are hard-coded and developed by software developers. The construction of user mashups for supporting a given concept of the shared conceptualization can be briefly defined as the selection of data sources [a], data source's modeling through the corresponding Widgets, searching, result selection [b], composition and combination into a single representation [c] and subsequent association to the correspondent concept.

Testing and Results

Two tests were conducted aiming to verify the utility, quality and efficacy of the software tool. The first test was performed in the form a real-time collaborative session, involving persons geographically dispersed (Portugal and Brazil). The main objective was to verify the system stability in the collaborative construction of a shared conceptualization. The second test was performed within a real business environment and had as a goal the collaborative development of a solution to an existent identified problem. Data was collected by semi-structured interviews with the members of the involved teams. Data analysis was done by qualitative methods using the dimensions and measures for information systems evaluation proposed in [START_REF] Steinhuser | Towards a measurement model of corporate social software success-evidences from an exploratory multiple case study[END_REF].

The tool revealed to be efficient in supporting the problems in both contexts. Especially on the second test, the software tool was able to bridge an existing gap related with the process of idea enrichment/maturing. Beyond this, the involved participants identified several positive aspects that can be classified into two levels: individual and organizational. In the individual level, the promotion of the individual learning and networking were pointed out as two value-added features. The richness, comprehensibility, format and accuracy of information were the factors identified as enablers for an easy learning and knowledge transfer. In the organizational level, the results achieved (in the second test) produced a positive impact on the environment which can be translated as an improvement in business process and subsequent cost reduction.

Conclusions

This paper presented a new approach that relies on Web Mashups as supporting tools for the process of new concept development in the FEI. The results obtained in both performed tests showed a positive impact on learning and new knowledge creation processes. COINs are very productive knowledge creation ecosystems and may integrate internal and external persons to organizations. By fostering and nurturing these networks through a collaborative platform of this nature, one can promote new knowledge creation by integrating external and internal knowledge to organizations, facilitating thus the absorptive capacity and consequently, the innovation.

The contributions of this work are tightly related to learning and knowledge creation through reflection. The developed software tool revealed the ability to provide the creation of virtual learning environments. Future work will include the study of its suitability and extension to educational contexts.

Fig. 1 .COIN

 1 Fig. 1. A conceptual framework for harnessing the collective intelligence in COINSAround a seminal idea about a new concept of a product or service, a group need or a market need, a COIN can emerge. Its members can join in a virtual shared space (ba) and start to collaborate by sharing ideas, know-how, experiences and opinions (Socialization) around a shared vision that is mapped into a plan (NKL) and codified as a shared conceptual structure (Externalization). The externalized knowledge can be combined or supported by/with knowledge embedded in knowledge artefacts distributed and available on the Web (videos, images, Web pages, RSS feeds, etc.) or located in organizational knowledge bases (design schematics, models, product's

  ) in which three major modules stand out: (1) Collaboration Module; (2) User Mashup Builder Module; (3) Mashup Middleware. The Collaboration Module operationalizes a virtual collaboration space (ba) providing users with communication tools, real-time collaboration and a shared whiteboard used for the co-construction of the shared conceptualization which is shaped by an extended concept map, where the shared concepts can be supported by Web Mashups. The User Mashup Builder Module provides functionalities for setting up searches and combination of results into a single and new representation -a mashup. Finally, the Mashup Middleware provides an interface layer for fetching and pre-processing data.

Fig. 2 .

 2 Fig. 2. Simplified high-level architecture of the software tool

Fig. 3 .

 3 Fig. 3. Mashup development process The second level (high level) is operationalized by the User Mashup Builder Module. This module builds on three components (Fig. 4): (1) Resources Library [a], which provides access and represents the EMML mashups available on the Mashup Middleware; (2) Mashup Dashboard [b], which hosts the mashup widgets selected in the Resource Library; (3) Composer [c], which allow the composition and combination of widgets selected resources into a single representation.

Fig. 4 .

 4 Fig. 4. The user interface of the User Mashup Builder Module.The Widgets define the user interface of EMML mashups providing search queries parameterization (filtering and sorting criteria), results presentation and selection.

Table 1 .

 1 User innovations promotion mechanisms in the Front End of Innovation

	Mechanisms	Operationalization	Studies
	Idea Contests	Knowledge Brokers Applications	[5]
	(Ideagoras, Ideariums, Ideatubes)	Social Media Platforms; SNS Platforms; [6, 7]
	Product Related Discussion Forums Discussion Forums	[2]
	Communities of Creation	Social Media Platforms; SNS Platforms;