Panagiotis Kokkinakos
email: pkokkinakos@epu.ntua.gr

Ourania Markaki
email: omarkaki@epu.ntua.gr

Dimitrios Panopoulos

Sotirios Koussouris

Dimitrios Askounis
email: askous@epu.ntua.gr

Dynamic Manufacturing Networks Monitoring and Governance

Keywords: Manufacturing Network, Operations Management, Monitoring, Governance, Dynamic Manufacturing Network, DMN

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

Introduction

Trying to adapt to the given and ongoing global economic crisis, the industrial/manufacturing sector pursues to minimize costs and, at the same time, to increase the effectiveness of external and internal procedures, as well as the customers' satisfaction through high quality products/services. The formation of Dynamic Manufacturing Networks (DMNs, which elsewhere and depending on the context, might also be referred as Virtual Enterprises) [START_REF] Camarinha-Matos | ECOLEAD and CNO base concepts[END_REF] is the natural evolution of typical supply chains that aim to respond to these challenges. DMN is a newly introduced term, coined to express the establishment of dynamic alliances among manufacturing companies in the direction of virtual enterprises for gaining mutual benefits. DMNs constitute a demand-driven (yet long-lasting) formation of enterprises for a certain purpose [START_REF] Camarinha-Matos | ECOLEAD: A Holistic Approach To Creation And Management Of Dynamic Virtual Organizations[END_REF]. For this purpose, the interconnection and effective communication among the various systems of every participating enterprise is considered a precondition. This communication is not limited to systems serving the same goal (e.g. ERP systems), but includes shop floor production systems, as well as top-level management systems. The general rationale behind forming such networks is to reduce both costs and time to market, while increasing flexibility, gaining access to new markets and resources, and utilizing collective intelligence on methodologies and procedures. The notion of a DMN includes the configuration of a network consisting of a large number of closely integrated and interdependent projects, which are executed over a wide geographic spread, across different time zones, and involve large numbers of staff. As it is understandable, this whole process, apart from being very difficult to be performed, affects also a wide range of stakeholders whether they are members of the network or not.

Although research has delivered a lot of methodologies for controlling plant operation and for monitoring production systems' effectiveness, there are no mature methodologies and tools fully appropriate for managing and monitoring DMNs. Today, various platforms exist (e.g. The focus of this study primarily lies on the definition of appropriate methods and ICT tools supporting the efficient Monitoring and Governance of Dynamic Manufacturing Networks. The four aforementioned sub-stages are discussed and analyzed, while conclusions are drawn with respect to the whole DMN process.

Real Time Data Collection and Network Monitoring

Industries and manufacturing organizations in general constantly face the challenge of organizing, checking and monitoring their activities. Especially nowadays, where saving time and reacting as fast as possible to emergencies and changes of demand constitute vital parameters to such kind of organizations, enterprise network monitoring is becoming of outmost importance. Its main task is to support avoiding severe economic losses resulting from unexpected process failures by improving the network's reliability and maintainability [START_REF] Salvadori | Monitoring in Industrial Systems Using Wireless Sensor Network With Dynamic Power Management[END_REF].

Monitoring an event-driven [START_REF] Kap | Deliverable 5.1 -Requirements and State-of-the-art for Monitoring, Analysis and Mining of Event Streams[END_REF] and complicated system, such as an enterprise or an industrial network, is based on real time collection, exchange and processing of information. It can be taken as granted that the processing speed, as well as the great volume of data, constitute barriers towards an effective and stable solution. However, the advances in network technology and data collection, storage and processing in the dispersed manufacturing approach and the flexible and powerful virtual enterprise approach are rapidly emerging [START_REF] Lau | Partner Selection and Information Infrastructure of a Virtual Enterprise Network[END_REF]. Processes take place in several locations and new business opportunities can rise, both for suppliers and producers. Similar approaches can be met as performance measurement and performance management [START_REF] Westphal | Supervision Of Collaborative Processes In VOs[END_REF].

In order to overcome interoperability and data exchange problems, that are highly possible to come up in such complex procedures, a number of standards such as Product Data Exchange Specification (PDES), Standard for Exchange of Product (STEP) and Initial Graphic Exchange Specification (IGES) have been established.

The architecture of a virtual enterprise network basically consists of three layers: the network/platform layer, the service layer and the application layer. At the network level, the architecture defines the data formats and communication protocols that enable clients to exchange information and services. The service layer is a middle layer of reusable building blocks and runtime services that facilitate the development and use of end-user applications. Network security is incorporated in the design. The application layer includes information searching, collaborative engineering such as co-design, co-prototyping, and electronic commerce.

Numerous technologies and approaches have been recognized in order to support the aforementioned structure. Complex event processing (CEP), the agent-based models approach [START_REF] Gou | A Framework for Virtual Enterprise Operation Management[END_REF], Sequential Probability Ratio Test (SPRT) [START_REF] Singer | Applications of pattern recognition techniques to online fault detection[END_REF], artificial neural networks (ANNs) [START_REF] Sari | A Neural Network Model for the Assessment of Partners' Performance in Virtual Enterprises[END_REF] constitute well-known and widespread alternatives.

Operational Level DMN Governance

This sub phase deals with the processing of the data retrieved during the monitoring phase and the decisions that should be taken and communicated in the responsible network points for easing out any abnormalities identified. As such, the main tasks performed in this phase deal with issues resolution, communication of the necessary actions to the DMN network nodes and coordination of the overall network in order to bounce back into an effective and productive state.

As noted by Douglas and Padula [START_REF] Douglas | Governance and Management of Horizontal Business Networks: An Analysis of Retail Networks in Germany[END_REF], "governance refers to the set of rules, restrictions, incentives and mechanisms applied to coordinate the participants in an organization", while Theurl [START_REF] Theurl | From corporate to cooperative governance[END_REF] calls it micro-governance and notes that, under rules, one must include procedures for cooperation, management, decision making, conflict resolution and ways to adapt the operation. Operational Level DMN governance implies the need of control and management actions in real time, which requires the appropriate mechanisms for collecting and analyzing the data from the different nodes in real time (or close to real time).

According to [START_REF] Camarinha-Matos | ECOLEAD: A Holistic Approach To Creation And Management Of Dynamic Virtual Organizations[END_REF], a common mistake performed is the perception that there is direct relation of the behavior and the management activities of virtual organizations to these single organizations. Sydow [START_REF] Sydow | Management von Netzwerkorganisationen: Zum Stand der Forschung[END_REF] argues that the management of an interorganizational network implies significant changes to the functions and management practices, compared with those used in hierarchical organizations and corporations. The possibility to optimize the coordination of the value network is better in the single-organization environment, whereas multi-organization environments focus on collaboration and feasible, but not optimal, ways to coordinate the network [START_REF] Rudberg | Manufacturing Networks And Supply Chains: An Operations Strategy Perspective[END_REF]. Based on the same study, the possibility to effectively manage a value network is also dependent on the quality of the available information, and ICT is playing a very important role in this direction, trying to bring the various systems together.

Although many propositions have been made in order to address the network complexity [START_REF] Hill | Manufacturing strategy: Text and cases[END_REF], [START_REF] Olhager | Linking manufacturing strategy decisions on process choice with manufacturing planning and control systems[END_REF], probably the most important interoperability constraint faced today deals with the inability of systems to directly use these standards and build touch points for interacting directly with the other systems. This need is addressed by the introduction of the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) concept, which is a software architecture model used for interconnecting different software applications in a Service Oriented Architecture [START_REF] Chappell | Enterprise Service Bus[END_REF]. A well-designed ESB for manufacturing applications would be able to bring together the PLM and ERP capabilities of systems, thus allowing governing the network. Adapter modules are responsible for providing a layer of abstraction between the servers and the component business or manufacturing systems (nodes) in the ESB, e.g., ERP, cPLM, product data and workflow systems. To promote interoperability, execution in this type of architecture occurs among component system adapters within the ESB. The component adapters facilitate point integration of component systems by adapting legacy systems and applications and other back-end resources such as databases, ERP, MES (Manufacturing Execution Systems), and PLM, to the ESB so that they can express data and messages in the standard internal format expected by the ESB.

Network Performance Measurement and KPIs Monitoring

This sub-phase includes measurement of the performance of the DMN by taking into consideration specific methodologies, directives and indicators for measuring and evaluating the effectiveness of the network, not only in operational but also in conceptual and strategic level. The most important business processes arein generalthose related to Production procedures, Supply Chain operations, Human and Physical Resources management, Product Development, Sales and Financial Management.

Generally, the challenge in network performance measurement is the necessity to transfer highly complex real-world processes to a simplifying processes model, to derive performance information from the model, and to transfer these results back to the real world [START_REF] Eschenbaecher | Predictive Performance Measurement in Virtual Organisations[END_REF]. The drawback of the several "traditional" approaches in performance measurement (e.g. Benchmarking, Six Sigma, EFQM, SCOR) is their orientation to single processes or functions, focusing on few certain perspectives, so they are not so appropriate for evaluation in strategic level. In all the recent studies [START_REF] Westphal | Supervision Of Collaborative Processes In VOs[END_REF], [START_REF] Graser | Towards performance measurement in virtual organizationspotentials, needs and research challenges[END_REF], [START_REF] Kaplan | Balanced Scorecard[END_REF], [START_REF] Colotla | Operation and Performance of International Manufacturing Networks[END_REF], [START_REF] Jähn | Value-added process-related performance analysis of enterprises acting in cooperative production structures[END_REF], [START_REF] Romero | VO breeding environments & virtual organizations integral business process management framework[END_REF] several aspects of collaboration performance and potential performance indicators can be identified. Selected sets of KPIs measuring flexibility, reliability, and prompt-ness/speed are taken as defined in traditional approaches (SCOR, BSC). Westphal et al. [START_REF] Westphal | Managing collaboration performance to govern virtual organizations[END_REF] goes a step further and proposes a generic structure that organises the different aspects, while it also supports the integration of collaboration performance in existing performance measurement approaches.

In any case, it is obvious that measurement and monitoring of "combined" KPIs is the key for evaluating a DMN's performance and taking strategic decisions for altering the network's structure and/or operation. Ibis Associates [START_REF]Key Performance Indicators[END_REF] also provide a set of the most commonly used KPIs in manufacturing and engineering enterprises.

Network Performance Evaluation and DMN Reformation

"Network Performance Evaluation" includes the analysis and evaluation of the latter towards deciding on whether a reconfiguration of the network is necessary in order to maximize the anticipated results (e.g. risk/opportunity assessment, optimization of the DMN organizational structure, evaluation of the DMN management approach, inheritance management etc.). Contrary to the "Real Time Data Collection" and the "Network Performance Monitoring" sub-phases, "Network Performance Evaluation" involves considerably the human aspect and relies to a large extent on management experiences previously acquired.

The reconfiguration of the network's organizational structure is possible and justifiable as a result of the fluidity and changing nature of a DMN and should be performed in the light of optimizing the network structure and enabling better accomplishment of its objectives. The type of the DMN organizational structure is interdependent to the DMN management approach, discussed in the following paragraph, while it should also basically determine the framework for knowledge management.

As already outlined, "Monitoring and Governance" is the last phase of the DMN lifecycle, which aims at monitoring and controlling the operation of the network in a continuous way, resulting either in "small and corrective" decisions towards the network's operation optimization or to "larger and structural" changes, which are fed back to the DMN "Network Configuration" phase. Despite the fact that the nature of a DMN is prone to change and evolution, such a network is practically a strategic alliance among enterprises that poses a great deal of advantages for its members, so that it is in their best interest to maintain its operation. Yet, although less likely to occur, one of the possible stages in the DMN lifecycle is the DMN dissolution.

In the unusual event of DMN dissolution, there is a need to plan the transfer of the knowledge collected within the DMN to its members or another entity based on defined agreements. Such knowledge may include devised practices, developed products and processes, warranties, Intellectual Property Rights, knowledge about customers and markets, working and sharing principles, partners' performances, performance metrics, and other information possibly important for future activities [START_REF] Camarinha-Matos | ECOLEAD: A Holistic Approach To Creation And Management Of Dynamic Virtual Organizations[END_REF]. In this case it is necessary to process the information first to obtain an utilizable format instead of transferring all available raw data. As far as network performance metrics and KPIs are concerned, typical processing includes among others the calculation of means, maximum and minimum values as well as standard deviations. The number of measured values and the target values improve the picture. The DMN inheritance management is intended to support future endeavors of the DMN partners in terms of [START_REF] Camarinha-Matos | ECOLEAD and CNO base concepts[END_REF]:

 improving their preparedness and thus supporting the faster creation of DMNs;  making DMNs more effective and reliable in terms of both time and costs and improving or ensuring quality;  decreasing DMN management efforts through increased trust and strengthened relationships;  supporting decision-making and tracking of DMN problems or deviations;  enabling higher chances of success in competitive bidding, because of customer knowledge and closer customer relationships.

The IMAGINE Project Approach

IMAGINE1 is an R&D project, funded by the European Commission under the "Virtual Factories and Enterprises" theme of the 7 th Framework Programme. The project targets the development and delivery of a novel comprehensive methodology and the respective platform for effective end-to-end management of DMNs in an innovative plug and produce approach, and aims at supporting the emergence of a powerful new production model, based on community, collaboration, self-organization and openness rather than on hierarchy and centralized control.

The DMN lifecycle, as defined by IMAGINE, is structured as an iterative closedloop, network manager assisted methodology that enables automation of repetitive steps, while retaining the flexibility to allow product variants, value adding network re-configurations, and end-to-end processes customizations. The IMAGINE framework relies on end-to-end integrated ICT solutions that effectively enable the management of networked manufacturing supply chains. The IMAGINE solution is market-oriented with focus on value chain streamlining and support for innovative business models. Processes are streamlined looking for the flexibility to adapt to take advantage of the unique capabilities inherent at each individual company, and to adapt easily to changing circumstances and emerging markets.

The three major phases that constitute the IMAGINE Lifecycle are: i) Network Analysis and Configuration that deals with the formation of the DMN upon the receipt of a new order and the validation of its capability to carry out the necessary production ii) Network Design, which focuses on modelling and developing the coordination plan of the various manufacturing processes, and finally iii) Network Execution Management and Monitoring. Network Execution Management and Monitoring aims to include process and production tracking, performance analysis (based mainly on carefully selected KPIs), labour management, resource availability management, movement, storage and tracking of materials, as well as repair adaptation and tuningleading eventually to Network refinement and improvement.

The DMN collaboration platform of IMAGINE will provide the technical backbone to support the proposed life cycle and integrate virtually all the aspects of the virtual manufacturing network and processes.

Conclusions

As presented in the document at hand, according to current approaches, three consequent key phases are considered in the lifecycle of a DMN: a) Network Configuration, b) Network Design, and c) Network Monitoring and Governance. The present study focused on the last phase which is the most crucial for the operation and the sustainability of the network. It can be taken for granted that, no matter how efficient and effective a Dynamic Manufacturing Network can be, the monitoring and governance of such a multi-disciplinary formation is a real challenge, as poor performance in management and monitoring could easily cost huge amounts of money and time, while it could even result in the collapse of the network.

As stated above, the last phase of the DMN lifecycle claims the responsibility for monitoring and governing end-to-end process performance and detecting events that may affect the execution of the manufacturing operations. Analyzing process efficiency and effectiveness and aligning processes with enterprise goals and objectives involves reacting to critical business events, correlating event data and updating the, during the Network Design phase defined, key performance indicators (KPIs).

The IMAGINE Project proposes a novel, integrated solution-focused manufacturing environment that involves global supply chain management, product-service linkage and management of distributed manufacturing assets. It enables companies to improve visibility and optimize supply network performance by connecting key people, processes and information across the production lifecycle into a collaborative manufacturing environment, while providing continual refinement and improvement of end-to-end processes through the constant measurement, evaluation and improvement of processes and resource consumption patterns.

  Transportation Management Systems, Material Resource Planning, Warehouse Management Systems), but as Westphal et al. note [3], there is a lack of approaches and tools specifically developed for dynamic networks that consist of distributed, independent, and heterogeneous members. Current approaches cannot deliver acceptable results without strong modifications and one has to investigate to what extent they can meet the different requirements set by such dynamic alliances.

DMN Monitoring and Governance can be split in the following four sub-phases:  Real Time Data Collection and Network Monitoring.  Operational Level DMN Governance.  Network Performance Measurement and KPIs Monitoring.  Network Performance Evaluation and DMN Reformation.

http://www.imagine-futurefactory.eu

Acknowledgements

The research leading to these results has been supported by the EC 7 th Framework Programme under the project "IMAGINE -Innovative end-to-end management of Dynamic Manufacturing Networks" Grant Agreement Νο. 285132.


Spilios Giannoulis
email: sgiannoulis@isi.gr

Christos Koulamas
email: koulamas@isi.gr

Christos Emmanouilidis

Petros Pistofidis
email: pistofidis@ceti.gr

Dimitris Karampatzakis
email: karampatzakis@ceti.gr

Zigbee

Zigbee Pro

Bluetooth

Wisa

Wireless Sensor Network Technologies for Condition Monitoring of Industrial Assets

Keywords:

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

Introduction

Over the last years numerous advancements have boost the use of wireless communications in many areas of the industry. Wireless communications have become standardized and can provide many options to the industry engineer to choose from, in order to design and deploy a wireless communication infrastructure. With speeds ranging from few Kbps to more than 100 Mbps and the cost of a wireless node dropping every day, wireless technologies look even more appealing. Then the notion of wireless sensor networks (WSN's) came into play to provide the wireless node with intelligence and upgrade it from a typical routing/transmitting mechanism to an intelligent sensing device. Every node in a WSN can now control autonomously a set of transducers or composite sensors, execute complex data processing techniques to the sensor data and organize, support and manage distributed applications in cooperation with other nodes in the network.

The paper is structured as follows. In the first part, the focus is on the definition of the most important application specific characteristics, the requirements on the services that a WSN infrastructure has to provide, as well as the main trade-offs in the design process. In the second part, the dominant wireless communication technologies and standards are presented, pointing out the pros and cons against each requirement and trade-off axis based on the requirements of Industrial Asset Management applications. The goal of this paper is mainly to pinpoint the possible characteristics of each technology that provide specific advantages within the Application Domain and try to point in the direction of a technology that should exhibit most of these characteristics in the future.

Domain Characteristics

Looking into the wider industrial monitoring and control systems supporting the application domain of scope, the mostly cited efforts on addressing important specific requirements can be structured in: a) the real-time performance and dependability axis, and b) the seamless integration and interoperability axis. Regarding the first axis, systems and networks needed for condition monitoring applications used in the context of a preventive maintenance policy implementation may be safely categorized under the SP100 classes 5 and/or 4, that is, logging, downloading/uploading and alerting systems. Typical periodicities of sampling simple, onedimensional sizes, such as temperatures, pressures etc. do not introduce really strict real-time requirements, since the machine wear -which is the main monitoring objective -usually evolves in a wider time scope. However, more complex measurements such as vibration monitoring may pose stricter real-time requirements, when it comes to certain architectural and design decisions over the handling of the time series that constitutes one "sample". This depends on the needed size of the sample and the complexity of the applied algorithmic processing (e.g. for novelty detection and/or fault diagnosis), which, in turn, define alone a design space with certain decisions on computation / storage / bandwidth trade-offs. As an indicative order of magnitude, consider that a 16-bit/80kHz vibration sample produces 160kByte/sec that needs to be handled. The approach of data preprocessing in the wireless node reduces the volume of data that need to be transmitted to the data server, however in some cases the raw sample data is required to be transferred, either for simple data logging purposes or for more complex data processing, leading to extensive networking transmission load and increased latency if the networking technology is not able to handle effectively the volume of the raw data set.

Furthermore, synchronization requirements may also exist between measurements at different sensing points when for example collaborative sensor applications are the case at hand. Adding into the picture the wireless nature, related to medium behavior aspects -especially in the noisy industrial environment -as well as to energy related constraints, it is also obvious that the trade-off space may drastically increase.

Finally, the demand for seamless integration and interoperability clearly indicates a necessary focus on established international standards for any large scale industrial investment to be justified. These standards mainly have to address the networking and inter-networking layer, as well as the application level protocols, data definition and architectural layers. Since in this paper the focus is on networking technologies, the main relevant standards and industrial specifications are presented and discussed in the following sections.

WSN Technologies and Standards

Three main standardized wireless technologies exist today that can be used in the context of WSN's to provide the required connectivity mechanisms. These include IEEE 802.11 [START_REF]Wireless Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications for Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs)[END_REF], IEEE 802.15.1[2] and IEEE 802. 15.4 [3]. Based on these standards several enhancements/related standards or products have been presented like the WirelessHART [7] and ISA 100.11a [8] standards that are based partially on the IEEE 802.15.4, as well as Bluetooth [5] and WISA [START_REF] Scheible | Unplugged but connected -Design and Implementation of a Truly Wireless Real-Time Sensor/Actuator Interface[END_REF], that are based fully or partially on IEEE 802.15.1 respectively. The characteristics of each standard/solution shall be presented in this section and the pros and cons of each protocol shall be exposed with respect to the application domain characteristics and requirements.

The IEEE 802.11x family of standards defines the physical and MAC layer protocols that can match perfectly to the design and organization of a wireless local area network (WLAN). Various transmission speeds are supported from 2 Mbps up to hundreds of Mbps with the latest 802.11n standard that introduces MIMO techniques to mitigate the effect of the multipath problem, as well as a range of transmission up to hundreds of meters outdoors and approximately 50-60m indoors. This technology can still be used in WSN's with the disadvantage of relatively high power consumption opposed to the low power requirements of a WSN. Even more, IEEE 802.11x family suffers from interference issues and exhibits reduced robustness especially in the presence of Bluetooth/IEEE 802.15.4 that both use the same ISM 2.4 GHz band as well as possible interference from industrial processes present in close proximity of the transceiver. The use of a CSMA based MAC algorithm provides non-deterministic timing behavior and therefore cannot support strict real time application requirements especially if the typical state of the network in terms of data load is anything else than low.

The IEEE 802.15.1 standard on the other hand came at first to fulfill the need for wireless connectivity in the range of a few meters, hence it was characterized as a personal area network protocol (PAN). Its main target was to replace wires connecting devices like keyboards and mice to a pc, speakers to any kind of sound source, and in general any low-range, low-bandwidth wired solution until that day. The idea of using IEEE 802.15.1 as a wireless solution to enable wireless networking came together with Bluetooth, an enhancement of IEEE 802.15.1 focusing mainly on upper layers of a wireless network providing advanced routing and application specific profiles as well as 3 classes of possible transmitting power that provide different communication range from few meters (class 3 device) up to 100m maximum (class 1 device). The maximum supported theoretical throughput is 3 Mbps in Bluetooth v2.0 standard although it has been found that in practice no more than 2.1 Mbps can be achieved due to protocol overhead. For Bluetooth v1.x the maximum theoretical throughput is 1 Mbps but it has been shown in [START_REF] Valenti | On the throughput of Bluetooth data transmissions[END_REF] that it cannot surpass the 700 kbps barrier for the same reason as stated before, protocol overhead. The main disad-vantage of IEEE802.15.1/Bluetooth, which hinders its wider adoption in WSN's, is its small range and restricted support of scalability since it supports only a few nodes per Piconet, the proposed cluster of devices in Bluetooth standard employing a single master-multiple slaves stations architecture. Its main advantage is its real time behavior based on the MAC layer used, as well as in the application profiles defined by Bluetooth for time critical applications.

The WISA solution that is based on IEEE 802.15.1 offers re-usability of wireless frequencies forming cells much like in the mobile telephony networks. Using TDMA as well in the MAC layer, WISA provides deterministic behavior as well as advanced interference deterrent techniques like frequency division duplex and frequency hopping to minimize interference in the industrial environment. It should also be noted that in addition to the wireless communication solution, WISA also provides a wireless power provisioning solution based on long-wave radio frequencies that takes advantage of the inductive magnetic coupling phenomenon. This technology could render WISA a completely wireless and free from power constraints solution for the industrial environment.

The IEEE 802.15.4 standard provides wireless communication speeds up to 250 kbps and communication range up to 60-80m outdoors as well as low power characteristics that make it an ideal candidate for use in the context of wireless sensor networks. It can be considered a middle solution between IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.15.1 standards in terms of range but not in terms of power and throughput, since it exhibits the lowest power consumption making it ideal for WSN but also the lowest link throughput. Based on the IEEE 802.15.4, several standards exist that focus on providing higher layer services like routing, application profiles etc. These standards include ZigBee [START_REF]ZigBee specification[END_REF]/ZigBee Pro, an analogous of what Bluetooth is for IEEE 802.15.1, as well several other standards that try to provide enhanced services like the 6LowPAN standard from IETF.

ZigBee provides on top of the IEEE 802.15.4 PHY and MAC layers, the Network and Application layer as well as security services. The most important characteristic that ZigBee adds is the mesh networking capabilities combining Tree Routing with on demand nonTree (mesh) Routing based on the well-known AODV routing algorithm [START_REF] Perkins | Ad-hoc on-demand distance vector routing[END_REF]. It also natively supports both star and tree typical networks topologies. Besides adding two high-level network layers to the underlying structure, another significant improvement is the introduction of ZigBee Device Objects (ZDOs). These are responsible for a number of tasks, which include keeping of device roles, management of requests to join a network, device discovery and security. Compared to IEEE 802.15.4 it improves greatly the possible selection of topologies to enable the deployment of a ZigBee based network as well as adding security mechanism on top of IEEE 802.15.4. and vendor specific ZDOs to enable interoperability between different vendor devices. ZigBee Pro enhances transmission range up to hundreds of meters by increasing the transmission power and receiver sensitivity.

6LowPAN enables the use of IPv6 addressing over IEEE 802.15.4 based WSN's hence enabling the Internet of Things notion where every node in a WSN is visible as a device from any connected IP based network machine transparently. Its main advantages are the reuse and interoperability of already known and tested services and application data models like HTTP, HTML and XML as well as the transport subprotocols of IP, TCP and UDP. Furthermore, all existing IP based security and network management infrastructure already established in Industrial Environments can be used with minimal integration efforts.

WirelessHART on the other hand focuses in providing interoperability with wired Hart networks. Using frequency hopping combined with the DSSS modulation of the 802.15.4 radios, it increases the resistance of the WSN to common interference sources such as 802.11x when operating in the 2.4GHz band, and Bluetooth as well as several industrial processes and devices. Also the use of TDMA instead of CSMA/CA MAC algorithm as defined in IEEE 802.15.4, results in deterministic behavior of the WirelessHART in the time domain. Finally, the ISA 100.11a standard is also based on the IEEE 802.15.4 PHY. It also adds support for TDMA like WirelessHART, but also supports Channel Hopping and Mesh Routing in the lower layers while providing reliable and secure operation for critical monitoring, alerting, supervisory control, open loop and closed loop control applications.

4

Comparing the alternatives IEEE 802.11x family of standards offers high bandwidth that may be needed for continuous data logging purposes but suffers from interference from other devices in the 2.4 GHz ISM band as well as from typical industrial operations. The use of a CSMA based algorithm in MAC layer results in non-deterministic timing behavior, hindering the usage of IEEE 802.11x in time critical applications. The fact that it supports high bandwidth modes of operation lessens the impact of the CSMA algorithm when low network data load is the case. Its wide transmission range provides efficient and less challenging deployment methodologies to be used with few nodes being able to provide coverage to a large industrial area. This characteristic is also the reason that IEEE 802.11x is not able to provide a dense network solution for WSN's, since its wide range and the CSMA MAC algorithm used are a poor combination when dense wireless networking topologies is one of the requirements. It must be also noted that the maximum throughput obtained most of the times is far from the theoretical optimal especially if the wireless data load is high, due to CSMA based MAC, and also if there is interference of any kind. IEEE 802.15.1 offers low bandwidth, low transmission range, does not scale well, but offers good real time support at all times. This is mainly due to the TDMA MAC algorithm used, as well as because of the requirement imposed from the standard that only 7 active slave nodes can coexist per master node at all times. This behavior results in IEEE 802.15.1/Bluetooth to be a good candidate for alarm/condition monitoring in critical industrial systems where conditions change frequently and in a matter of seconds. On the other hand it is not suitable to be used for data logging/continuous data transfer since the bandwidth offered is low and cannot fulfill the needs imposed by the data logging application. WISA provides deterministic behavior by using a TDMA based MAC algorithm, further optimized to provide up to 120 sensors/actuators per Base Station as well as short cycle times up to 2048μs. Furthermore, it adds advanced interference mitigation techniques to minimize interference in the harsh industrial environment and there is no need for frequency planning in case of multiple cells since the FH sequences are constructed to guarantee adequate separation between consecutive hops and low correlation. In all cases, all operating cells use the entire available ISM band of 80 MHz at 2.2GHz [START_REF] Scheible | Unplugged but connected -Design and Implementation of a Truly Wireless Real-Time Sensor/Actuator Interface[END_REF].

Conclusion

This paper presents the requirements imposed by the applications of Industrial Asset Management and Preventive Maintenance. It then focuses on the standardized wireless technologies available today and presents their advantages and disadvantages resulting in a qualitative assessment of each wireless technology with respect to the requirements of Industrial Asset Management applications. It is evident that each technology has its specific advantages and disadvantages and can be used for specific applications of Asset Management but no one-fits-all solution exists at this time. As a final conclusion, it seems that in a future wireless standardization effort, several advantages could and should coexist like IP based communication, physical layer robustness due to the use of frequency division duplex and/or frequency hopping as well as possible MIMO antenna techniques to reduce the multipath effect. Last but not least TDMA based MAC protocol could be supported to provide real time performance which is so critical for most Industrial Applications. In this context, the two standards focusing in Industrial environment applications, the WirelessHart and ISA100.1a seem promising and it is our intention to evaluate them through extended benchmarks and QoS testing when several of-the-self products become available in order to have a detailed view of their behavior and QoS performance.

Table 1 .

 1 The IEEE 802.15.4 standard offers medium transmission range, medium bandwidth, and good scalability but suffers from time characteristics due to the CSMA based MAC layer used in IEEE802.[START_REF]IEEE Standard for Information technology -Telecommunications and information exchange between systems -Local and metropolitan area networks -Specific requirements -Part 15.4: Wireless Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications for Low-Rate Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs)[END_REF].4 and all standards based on it like ZigBee and ZigBee Pro. Only ZigBee Pro supports communication ranges up to few hundreds of meters duo to increased transmission power that results in lower power aware characteristics. As it was shown in[START_REF] Sun | Measuring effective capacity of IEEE 802.15.4 beaconless mode[END_REF], IEEE 802.15.4 performance is substantially lower in terms of throughput in comparison with the throughput defined in the standard. In fact no more than 140Kbps can be achieved in any case when the standard states that the theoretical speed of IEEE 802.15.4 is 250Kbps. This difference is based mainly in the small packet size defined in the standard that in conjunction with the required protocol data overhead present in each packet results in a 44% reduction of actual application data throughput. ISA100.11a and WirelessHART on the other hand provide real time characteristics since they are based on a TDMA MAC as well as robust operation, increasing the resistance of the WSN to common interference sources by the usage of frequency/channel hopping combined with the DSSS modulation. The above characteristics result in proclaiming ISA100.11a and WirelessHART better candidates than standard IEEE802.15.4/ZigBee/ZigBee Pro, while the main disadvantage is the lack of wide availability of products, so far. Comparing all families of standards, it seems that IEEE 802.15.4 provides today a middle-level solution capable to support the wider possible range of related trade-offs, excluding the extreme cases of high-bandwidth, continuous data logging scenarios. Combined with 6LoWPan it may also offer superior interoperability and scalability since it provides IPv6 addressing and so direct communication with IP based backbone infrastructures, eliminating the usage of application level gateways and protocol translators. It should also be noted that in general, low power wireless solutions like IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee and /IEEE 802.15.1/Bluetooth are well suited for low data rate industrial applications duo to their low power characteristics that result in maximized longevity of the provided solution. But for high data rate applications, solutions like the IEEE 802.11x should be considered since they offer lower normalized power consumption per transmitted byte compared to IEEE 802.15.1 and IEEE 802.15.4 as it has been shown in[START_REF] Lee | A Comparative Study of Wireless Protocols: Bluetooth, UWB, ZigBee, and Wi-Fi[END_REF]. In Table1, a qualitative comparison of the aforementioned protocols and products is presented with respect to the requirements imposed by the applications of the Condition Monitoring for Industrial Assets domain. Comparison of the presented Wireless Communication Standards based on the requirements of Industrial Asset Management.

	Wireless Technology	Robustness	Real Time Performance	Range	Link Throughput	Network Scalability	Power awareness
	IEEE 802.11	*	*	***	***	**	*
	IEEE 802.15.4	**	*

Acknowledgements

The financial support received through GSRT (grant 09SYN-71-856, project Wel-COM) is gratefully acknowledged.


S Martínez
email: smartinez@tecnun.es

A Errasti
email: aerrasti@tecnun.es

J Santos
email: jsantos@tecnun.es

M Mediavilla
email: miguel.mediavilla@bshg.com

Framework for Improving the Design and Configuration Process of Global Operations

Keywords: Internationalization, SMEs, SBUs, Operations Strategy

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

Introduction

Internationalization of production and logistics networks is a phenomenon that has gained momentum over the last decade as a consequence of the evolution of the competitive environment. Many manufacturing companies, in fact, have increased their international presence to remain competitive. The internationalization of operations can take different forms and includes the development of new configurations such as international distribution systems, networks of global suppliers, and multi-site and/or fragmented manufacturing networks.

However, the starting up and supplier development process are some of the most difficult decisions to make, because it implies a lot of risks not only for multinational companies, but also and especially for SMEs (Small Medium Enterprises) and SBUs (Strategic Business Units) from Industrial Divisions, which resources are limited.

Many SMEs and SBUs of industrial divisions with local success fall down in foreign markets. Although, these are immersed in the globalization process, many of them are in the initial phase of internationalization in emerging market economies as well as in countries in transition, and need to be prepared for the challenges of new market economies [START_REF] Szabó | New institutional economics and agricultural co-operatives: a Hungarian case study[END_REF].

Due to the rapid changes that have occurred during the last decades, almost every company or enterprise is affected by at least some kind of international challenge. Nevertheless, in the case of SMEs they have to cope with more difficulties because of having limited resources, limited market knowledge, limited use of networks and limited international experience of the entrepreneurs [START_REF] Kalinic | Rapid internationalization of traditional SMEs: Between gradualist models and born globals[END_REF], and the same complications can affect to SBUs too. Consequently, the SMEs and SBUs internationalization process merits great attention.

Therefore, facing the management of a production logistic network in different countries is an enormous challenge which requires a greater coordination to get optimal levels of quality, flexibility and cost [START_REF] De Meyer | Flexibility: the next competitive battle the manufacturing futures survey[END_REF]. Summarizing, whilst all type of organisations are facing significant challenges for managing increasingly complex global operation, current literature on global operation networks is still limited in its scope [START_REF] Corti | Challenges for off-shored operations: findings from a comparative multi-case study analysis of Italian and Spanish companies[END_REF][START_REF] Laiho | International Manufacturing Networks: a literature review[END_REF]. Even more if it is considered SMEs and SBUs.

This paper shows the new improved version of the GlobOpe (Global Operations) Framework, which was exposed in the last APMS Conference, held in Stavanger (Norway) [START_REF] Martinez | Framework for International Manufacturing Network Design and Configuration: An Empirical Study in the Wind Sector[END_REF].

2

Research problems and gap

New production facility implementation

The implementation of a production plant is the strongest step of any organization that seeks to internationalize [START_REF] Barnes | The complexities of the manufacturing strategy formation process in practice[END_REF], and for that besides the obvious economic investment, the establishment and subsequent management of the production facilities require a broad range of knowledge and skills related to operations management such as: establish agreements with local logistics suppliers, manage the expatriate staff, modify products and services to suit local requirements, etc. On the other hand, some companies try to minimize the problems associated with the establishment through the acquisition of existing resources. In these cases, there might be a number of contingences, for example: the integration into the operating practices of the organization, incompatibility of the acquired information systems, etc.

Supply network design and sourcing

Purchasing has evolved in the past few decades from a passive administrative role into a strategic function that contributes to creating a competitive advantage as much as other business functions [START_REF] Alinaghian | Proposing a model for purchasing system transformation[END_REF]. This development is logical, given that purchases represent a large percentage of the final cost of the product and are of crucial importance for its quality and performance. Hence, considering the definition of global or international purchasing given by [9] as "the activity for searching and obtaining goods, services and other resources on a possible worldwide scale, to comply with the needs of the company and with a view to continuing and enhancing the current competitive position of the company. The global purchasing includes all phases of the purchasing process, from before the definition of the specification list, through supplier selection and buying to the follow-up and evaluation phase. Furthermore, the global purchasing management is one of the first steps to define and design a global supply chain development [START_REF] Leenders | Purchasing and Supply Management[END_REF].

Errasti [START_REF] Errasti | Gestión de compras en la empresa, ediciones Pirámide[END_REF] in his book about purchasing management identifies and explains in depth which are the challenges, risks and characteristics of the new purchasing function, some of them are: define the strategy in the supplier market, search for new suppliers, collect suppliers' value-added proposals and develop appropriate suppliers, integrate marketing and supply strategies in shorter product life cycles, define the contract management in the contract life cycle, negotiation power, face the different supply chain configurations, etc. For instance, in terms of supply chain configurations, it can be seen that nowadays in a multisite and fragmented production system, where the supplier network is composed of local or domestic suppliers and offshore suppliers and manufacturing facilities, these offshore suppliers and facilities need the coordination of quality control and the supply network with different delivery times and procurement reliability [START_REF] Meixell | Global Supply Chain Design: A literature Review and A Critique[END_REF].

Research gap

Although, there are many researchers about Global Operations, practical experiences have shown that strategy-specific checklists are needed, which might raise awareness of the real success factors of the pursued goal and avoid unpleasant surprises [START_REF] Kinkel | Drivers and antecedents of manufacturing offshoring and backshoring. A German Perspective[END_REF]. Moreover, different researchers [START_REF] Vereecke | The strategic role of the plant: testing Ferdow´s model[END_REF][START_REF] Shi | Internationalization and evolution of manufacturing systems: classic process models, new industrial issues, and academic challenges[END_REF] state the need to build models or frameworks of international manufacturing systems that help managers to design and manage their networks, which should take into account the requirements for the next generation of factories such as agility, flexibility, modularity, adaptability, etc. [START_REF] Azevedo | Factory Templates for Digital Factories Framework[END_REF].

Hence, the examination of the literature revealed that there is a lack of methods and techniques to accomplish the design and configuration process of a global production and logistic network.

Research methodology

There are many researchers who view the use of a mixture of methods as desirable, particularly in terms of developing valuable theory form observation and empirical analysis [START_REF] Gill | Research Methods for Managers[END_REF][START_REF] Mingers | Multimethodology: towards a framework to mixture methodologies[END_REF]. The important point is to choose the most appropriate methods for the investigation of the defined research question [START_REF] Karlsson | Researching Operations Management[END_REF]. Then, a combination of different research methodologies have been chosen with the objective of reinforcing the week points of one method with the strengths of others. With these aims in mind and due to lack of space, the next table just mentions which have been the steps given by the researchers:

Scope

The Framework called GlobOpe bears in mind the Operations Strategy key decisions that need to be made regarding a global production and logistic network configuration and design in the internationalization process. These key decisions are the following five: supply sources location (own and not own); strategic role; make or buy decisions; service delivery strategy and global operations network.

Approach

The methodology aids to determinate the problems specifications with the users help and it allows homogenizing the whole information. There are many modeling techniques, each one with special characteristics. According to the methodologies classification [START_REF] Erkes | Public Domain Report Number 1, Rapport pour le domaine publique du projet Européen ESPRIT[END_REF][START_REF] Roboam | Public Domain Report Number 2. Rapport pour le domaine publique du projet Européen ESPRIT[END_REF], the GlobOpe Framework covers the strategic and tactical horizon, the physic and decisional model nature and also the analysis, design and implementation stages.

GlobOpe Framework

The framework is centred in the most advanced stage of a company in terms of becoming global. According to the volume of international sales and the international production, the companies can be classified as: global, local, offshorer and exporter companies [START_REF] Luzarraga | Mondragon Multi-Location Strategy-Innovating a Human Centred Globalisation Mondragon University[END_REF]. Nevertheless, companies are not tied to one of these strategies during their whole life cycle. Thus, they could change and adapt them. There are different behaviors and paths can be followed to achieve a rating of global competitor, but the GlobOpe Framework is focused on helping companies in the internationalization process, that is to say, to move from exporter to global.

Hence, the goal of the GlobOpe Framework is the design and configuration process of a global production and logistic network, which can be a useful management tool for SMEs and SBUs steering committees responsible for the Global Operations effectiveness and efficiency [START_REF] Errasti | International Manufacturing Networks: Global Operations Design and Management[END_REF].

The framework intends to fill the gap left by the other ones which are really useful in a stable environment but they are not suitable in a market dynamic environment [START_REF] Mediavilla | Framework for assessing the current strategic plant role and deploying a roadmap for its upgrading. An empirical study within a global operations network[END_REF] where new facilities implementation [START_REF] Kinkel | Drivers and antecedents of manufacturing offshoring and backshoring. A German Perspective[END_REF][START_REF] Azevedo | Factory Templates for Digital Factories Framework[END_REF][START_REF] Abele | Global production: a handbook for strategy and implementation[END_REF] supplier network development [START_REF] Leenders | Purchasing and Supply Management[END_REF][START_REF] Trent | Pursuing competitive advantage through integrated global sourcing[END_REF][START_REF] Gelderman | Managing the global supply base through purchasing portfolio management[END_REF] and multi-site network [START_REF] Vereecke | The strategic role of the plant: testing Ferdow´s model[END_REF][START_REF] Ferdows | Making the most of foreign factories[END_REF] are needed.

Keeping in mind the GlobOpe presented in the previous APMS Conference [START_REF] Martinez | Framework for International Manufacturing Network Design and Configuration: An Empirical Study in the Wind Sector[END_REF] and after different project and researcher carried out, the researchers realize that the Glo-bOpe Framework needs to be enlarged. Therefore, the new GlobOpe Framework considers that there are three main problems related to Operations configuration in which the above decisions should be reviewed: new facilities implementation, global supplier network configuration and multi-site network configuration, so for each of them the researchers have developed a specific model. However, in this paper are only briefly exposed the first two pillars of the Framework.

GlobOpe Model for New Facilities Implementation

When assessing production locations abroad, companies tend to underestimate the necessary ramp up times [START_REF] Kinkel | Drivers and antecedents of manufacturing offshoring and backshoring. A German Perspective[END_REF] for securing process reliability, quality and productivity. Nevertheless, in order to manage such a ramp up with a high degree of precision, first a planning period phase is necessary, starting with the design of the product, the process and the supply chain network [START_REF] Kurtila | Model Factory concept-Enabler for quick manufacturing capacity ramp up[END_REF].

Therefore, the main goal to be achieved with this model is to manage the ramp up process with a high degree of precision and reduce ramp up delays in time and volume. With this aim in mind, when designing the model, the researchers have taken into consideration the following assumptions:

• Business Strategy should be aligned with Operations Strategy [START_REF] Monczka | Purchasing and Supply ChainManagement, 4th edn[END_REF].

• A close coordination between agents in the supply chain due to the multiple possible configurations [START_REF] Meixell | Global Supply Chain Design: A literature Review and A Critique[END_REF]. • Apply concurrent engineering: a planning period phase is necessary, starting with the design of the product, the process and the supply chain network in a parallel way [START_REF] Errasti | Construction Process Reengineering[END_REF]. • The physical and productive design should be adaptive.

• The process and management system have to be adapted to local characteristics [START_REF] Errasti | Internacionalización de operaciones: estado del arte, Cluster de movilidad, logística y transporte[END_REF]. • The shop floor management process has to be progressive [START_REF] Taylor | Manufacturing operations and supply chain management: The lean approach[END_REF] (start up, team and equipment stability, improvement and excellence). • Think about the productive process strategy (fragmented or not). In case to be fragmented a decoupling point [START_REF] Wikner | Integrating production and engineering perspectives on the customer order decoupling point[END_REF] could be needed to assure it. • Supplier network design and configuration is the bottleneck in the ramp up process.

Ultimately, bearing in mind the life cycle of a company, this model shows which are the analysis, operational, stability, improvement and excellence decisions that should be made and propose useful principles, methods and techniques in order to accomplished these decisions in an effective and efficient way.

GlobOpe Model for Global Supplier Network Development

There are companies, which have expanded their operations throughout the world. The purchasing is one of them, however, global purchasing can be the result of a reactive, opportunist decision to decrease the purchasing cost of one item, but it can also be a strategic and coordinated effort to pro-actively enhance the competitive position of the company. Consequently, in this case, the main goal to be reached with this model is to develop and design an accurate and reliable supply network. So that, when designing the model, the researchers have been aware of the following assumptions:

• The starting point is the suppliers' network design, which is considered as the bottleneck in the ramp up process. • The global purchasing management is one of the first steps to define and design a global supply chain development [START_REF] Leenders | Purchasing and Supply Management[END_REF]. • The global sourcing strategy has to be aligned with organizational design [START_REF] Trent | Understanding integrated global sourcing. International journal of physical distribution and logistics management[END_REF].

• Keeping in mind the five purchasing stages propose by Trent and Monczka [START_REF] Trent | Pursuing competitive advantage through integrated global sourcing[END_REF] the researches define and summarize them in three stages, the first one is when company only purchase in domestic or local markets, the second is when the companies engage a close international purchasing strategy and the last one is when they develop a worldwide purchasing strategy.

In short, this model proposes purchasing policies or principles, levers or methods and techniques (for each stage) for aiding the decision process and identifying which are the next steps that the company needs to go through the next stage in the purchasing internationalization process.

Contribution

The framework developed is theoretically grounded and combines practical relevance and practical utility with theoretical novelty, all being criteria for evaluating the quality of constructive research [START_REF] Kasanen | The constructive approach in management accounting research[END_REF]. For this reason, the GlobOpe Framework might be a practical guideline to help managers in the decision making in order to define the efficient and effective roadmap for their company depending on the problem that they have to face. On the one hand, the GlobOpe Model for New Facilities Implementation along with the principles and tools proposed could aid to increase effectiveness and decrease ramp up delays. It also allows managing the design and configuring the facilities supply network with a high degree of precision. On the other hand, the GlobOpe Model for Global Suppliers Network Configuration could be used as an assessment tool for a Steering Committee to help them in the global supplier development.

Table 1 .

 1 Roadmap of research methodology to build, test and verify the GlobOpe Framework

	Stage Research Technique	Purpose or scope
	1	Literature review	Identify the gaps
	2	Constructive research [20]	Develop the GlobOpe Model for New Facilities Imple-
			mentation (NFI)
	3	Action research (in a wind turbine	Test and verify the GlobOpe Model for NFI
		manufacturer) [21-22]	First thoughts about the necessity to expand the model
	4	Literature review	Develop and improve the GlobOpe Model for Global
		Case study [23]	Supplier Network Configuration (GSNC)
	5	Action research (in two textile	Test the GlobOpe Model for GSNC
		industries)
	6	Multiple case studies and triangu-	Verify and refine both models
		lation
	4	Theory building: GlobOpe Framework


João Dos Reis
email: joaoreis@ufgd.edu.br

Pedro De Oliveira

Costa Neto

João Gilberto Mendes Dos Reis

Pedro Luiz De Oliveira

Method for Quality Appraisal in Supply Networks

Keywords: Supply Networks, Supply Network Strategies, Quality Management Systems, Innovative and Functional Products

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

Introduction

Relationships between companies have become consolidated as these understand the need to operate in networks to be able to compete in current markets. For this purpose, and also seeking to maintain competitiveness in their markets, the companies have had to appraise and also position themselves inside the supply networks, including the flow of their products and services within these chains, seeking to respond to all the demands made by the clients.

Within this context, we can also conclude that these supply networks have different strategies according to the approach adopted by this net, or, in other words, the search for the elimination of waste, the capacity to make the processes more flexible, the ability of responding to the markets and also agility in serving the volatile markets. In essence, these strategies refer to the characteristics of the products made by the chain, that can be of the innovative or functional kind.

The success of the supply networks lies in the identification of the type of product which is delivered to the consumer, as it is therefore possible to establish the correct chain strategy to be adopted and also the application of the most appropriate QMS to be used.

In this way, this work seeks to present a method for the appraisal of quality in supply networks, that checks the alignment between these three aspects. The purpose of this method is to allow the organisations to appraise if their supply networks are using the appropriate approach in relation to the chain strategy and also the quality management system.

Methodology

Methodologically, this work has been divided into a sequence of phases, as shown below:

 First, there was a review of the relevant literature, seeking to understand the aspects and strategies that involve the supply networks, as also the concepts of quality, their applications and consequences.  Next, a method was established to identify the functional or innovative characteristic of the product, its supply network strategy and also the most appropriate quality system for this strategy.  Then, there was the production of a form with the questions to be aimed at the organisations and also the collection of management and accounting data from the companies.  The fourth part was the application of the method to thirteen organisations, in order to identify the alignment between the type of product, chain strategy and quality, checking to see if this is in agreement with what the method proposes and also its discussions.

Background

Supply Networks Strategies

A supply network seeks, by means of a relationship between organisations, in other words suppliers and clients, to deliver their products and services to the end consumer. The process of management this Supply Networks or Supply Chains is known as Supply Chain Management (SCM).

SCM is the management of the interconnection between companies that establish relationships with each other, through upstream and downstream links between the different processes, which add value in the form of products and services for the final customer [START_REF] Slack | Operations management[END_REF].

Thus, this is more than just a case of cost management, as this affects other aspects such as performance, speed and reliability of deliveries, the quality of the products and, finally, the flexibility with which the network can make adaptations [START_REF] Corrêa | Management supply networks[END_REF]. At present, it is possible to divide the supply network strategies into four distinct strategies.

Lean Supply Network. The concept of lean thought consists of developing a continuous flow of value to eliminate all the waste, including the waste of time [START_REF] Naylor | Leagility: integration the lean and agile manufacturing paradigms[END_REF]. This thought may be brought out in the Toyota Production Systems (TPS), whose focus is on the reduction and elimination of waste [START_REF] Agarwal | Modeling the metrics of lean, agile and leagile supply chain[END_REF]. TPS became known to other Japanese companies, and in the 1980s it took the West by storm, becoming known as Just in Time (JIT). One of the key characteristics of the business environment is that competition also takes place between the supply networks and not only between organisations [START_REF] Christopher | Logistics & supply chain management[END_REF]. Similarly, the elimination of waste, as also the effects of Lean Manufacturing (LM), does not occur only in one organisation but rather in a network of companies. Thus, this advancement of lean techniques for the whole network has become known as Lean Supply Network (LSN) or Lean Supply Chains (LSC).

Flexible Supply Network. Manufacturing companies, up against keen competition, have developed the skill to deal with external and internal uncertainties, making use of flexibility [START_REF] Gong | An economic evaluation model of supply chain flexibility[END_REF]. This is a target to be sought within organisations. The concept of flexibility, like that of Lean Production, has its main showcase of ideas in TPS, as flexibility is a constituent element of JIT. Thus, flexibility may be defined as the skill in changing or reacting with minimal loss of time [START_REF] Upton | The management of manufacturing flexibility[END_REF]. A supply chain cannot be something that cannot be changed, and it is necessary that it has the ability to impart quick flexibilisation of its operations, whether of production, logistics, marketing or supplies, which is possible through the circulation of information through the different links of the chain. Thus, the use of flexibility in supply chains has created the strategy known as Flexible Supply Chain (FSC), in some cases defined as Supply Chain Flexibility (SCF) or in this paper Flexible Supply Network (FSN). The idea behind this type of strategy is the reduction of risk through the use of characteristics of flexibility throughout the network.

Responsive Supply Network. Responsiveness consists of a skill of intentionally reacting, within an appropriate time scale, to the demands and changes in the market, thus maintaining a competitive edge [START_REF] Holweg | The three dimensions of responsiveness[END_REF]. Responsiveness is a strategy that consists of its response time, meaning that the shorter the response time for the chain in meeting the needs of the clients, the more responsive the chain shall be. Thus, those organisations that compete in volatile markets and/or where the client is not willing to wait, can obtain a sustainable competitive advantage through the reduction of their process times, whether the processes are productive, logistic or through obtaining raw materials. What allows a network to be more responsive is the good use of the competitive advantages based on time, using systems that are responsive and fast [START_REF] Christopher | Logistics & supply chain management[END_REF]. The responsive chains are known as Responsive Supply Network (RSN) or Responsive Supply Chains (RSC).

Agile Supply Chains. Among the different supply network strategies, one may be considered the most important among them, which is the case of agile supply chains. Agility is the skill of companies involving an organisational structure, information systems, logistic processes and, in particular, knowledge management [START_REF] Christopher | The agile supply chain: competing in volatile markets[END_REF]. The idea of agility within the concept of SCM focuses on the context of response to the market, being led by demand, with one main characteristic being that of a shorter lead time, based on information [START_REF] Christopher | Creating agile supply chains in fashion industry[END_REF]. This kind of supply chains are known as Agile Supply Network (ASN) or Agile Supply Chains (ASC).

Supply Chain Management Quality

Quality can be defined as conformity with the requirements [START_REF] Crosby | Quality is investment[END_REF]. Quality cannot exist if the requirements are not met; someone could wish to have quality of life, but this would be generic were it not for the establishment of specific requirements such as appropriate income, health, education and other measurable aspects [START_REF] Crosby | Quality is investment[END_REF]. Among the different processes of quality management, we could highlight: TQM (Total Quality Management), Six Sigma, ISO Standards and Hoshin Kanri.

Feigenbaum, who is one of the most important quality gurus, says that the quality of products and services to the consumer varies according to the life cycle of the product [START_REF] Feigenbaum | Total quality control[END_REF]. Thus, it is possible to identity four well-defined phases: innovation, the period in which the product is innovative and the consumer's demand for quality is less due to the fact that this is an innovation being implemented; conspicuous consume, the period in which the consumer seeks the visibility of the product (beauty and aesthetic characteristics) where the demand for quality is higher than in the previous phase, but still susceptible to faults; general use, where the use of the product becomes more widespread and there is the start of complete demand for quality; and commoditisation, the stage in which the products are part of people's lives, with the sale price of the product is low and the quality demands are at a maximum, meaning that in this stage there is no tolerance of faults and defects [START_REF] Feigenbaum | Total quality control[END_REF].

In the study of the literature on the issue, we see that there are very few texts that study the quality of supply networks; among the works found we can mention some research that has been used to understand the theme and also for the execution of this work: [START_REF] Robinson | Defining the concept of supply chain quality management and its relevance academic and industrial practice[END_REF], [START_REF] Sila | Quality in supply chains: an empirical analysis[END_REF], [START_REF] Foster | Towards an understanding of supply chain quality management[END_REF], [START_REF] Kaynak | A replication and extension of quality management into supply chain[END_REF], [17].

Functional and Innovative Products

The supply networks suffer from the excess of some products and the shortage of others, through the inability to predict demand and that an effective supply chain strategy is more than just considering the nature of demand for the company products [START_REF] Fisher | What is the right supply chain for your product? Harward Business Review[END_REF].

Fisher classifies the products, based on the demand standards, in two different categories [START_REF] Fisher | What is the right supply chain for your product? Harward Business Review[END_REF]: Functional Products. These are the products which satisfy basic needs of the consumer, which do not change much over time, having predictable and stable demand and long life cycles. This stability generates competition, which leads to low profit margins.

Innovative Products. These are the products which, through innovation and technology, become popular in certain periods and therefore generate, for the consumers, an additional attraction for the purchase of these products, which increases the profit margins. However, their demand is unpredictable, their life cycle is short (a matter of months) and also they suffer from imitations by other companies, which either reduce or eliminate the original competitive edge, meaning that the company shall have to live based on cycles of innovations.

Method Development

The method that has been developed for research consisted of four phases:

1. Research of Data: The first stage of the method is that of collecting the input data. In this work, the data were collected through a specific form assigned to managers of participating companies and also data available on the market, about participating companies, such as management reports and accounting spreadsheets.

Identification of Products:

The identification of whether the products are functional or innovative is made through the use of Table 1, where the corresponding answer is marked for each column. A number of five or greater for the column of functional products or the column of innovative products allows one to identify if the product is functional or innovative.

Identification of chain strategy:

Once the nature of the products has been identified, then the third stage seeks to establish the chain strategy to be used for this type of product. Once again making use of the data collected about uncertainty in supplies and also of demand, there is the application of the Table 2 which is based in the observations made by Lee [START_REF] Lee | Aligning supply chain strategies with product uncertainties[END_REF], thus finding the most appropriate chain strategy. 4. Establish a correlation between the variables and also identify the quality management system which is suitable for the supply chain: Once the type of product and the chain strategy have been identified, the types of products are linked to the supply chain strategy, the quality stage and the QMS. The result shows the ideal quality system to be applied (Table 3).

Discussion and Research Results

The method presented was applied to thirteen organisations from several different segments: one manufacturer of electrical equipment, one of plastic products, two of technology, one of foodstuffs, two of metallurgy and steel production, one from the automotive industry, two from the medical and diagnostic equipment segment and three producers of electronic goods. The field research took place in the second half of 2011. To check if the products were functional or innovative at the companies, products were chosen for each institution with similar characteristics, as the method requires the identification of the product to be analysed. Applying the concepts of Table 1, nine companies presented functional products, while only four were dealing with innovative products.

Once the type of product was identified, there was then the assessment of the most appropriate network strategy for each company, listing the uncertainties of demand and supply, and also checking the characteristics of the product, based on Table 2.

Thus, it was confirmed that 46% of the companies should use a lean strategy, 23% should use a flexible strategy, 15.5% a responsive strategy and another 15.5% an agile strategy.

In the form, there was the inclusion of one question in order to identify if the respondents perceived the type of supply chain strategy adopted by the organisations. The results showed that only two respondents managed to precisely identify the chain strategy used by their supply chain.

In relation to the QMS that the companies adopt, these have been analysed from two different angles, first considering the organisation under study and then considering this company's suppliers of raw materials, equipment and services.

The companies have said that they apply the ISO 9001:2008 standard. Evidently this standard is well known throughout the world and hence it is applied by most companies. In many segments, this standard is even mandatory for the suppliers. The other quality management systems were mentioned in an equivalent way, but none of them was present in more than 30% of the sample. Some organisations say that they use other specific quality assurance systems for the segment in which they are present. In all, 77% of the companies researched consider their management system to be excellent or good.

The second analysis was in relation to the quality management systems which they demanded from their suppliers of raw materials, equipment and services. To make sure of the quality of suppliers of products and services, the companies surveyed mostly used internal systems for the certification of suppliers and also created indices for the monitoring thereof. Other companies used ISO certification as a way of ensuring this quality. Only two companies said that they had distinctive systems to make sure of the quality of suppliers of products (raw materials and equipment) and service suppliers. For the first situation, they use ISO 9001:2008 while for the second situation they use performance indicators.

Finally, in relation to the correct alignment between product type, chain strategy and QMS, it was observed that the most appropriate systems to be implemented for the chain strategy of each organisation are not being applied in practice, there being a predominance of the application of ISO, regardless of the chain strategy used. TQM and Six Sigma are sometimes applied together and other times individually, but there is no prevalence for the companies as a whole. In relation to Hashin Kanri, we see that most companies are unaware of its scope, and this is directly reflected in the low usage of this type of QMS.

Through the data collected in the research, it was possible to reach the conclusion that, for the companies dealing with functional products, there is a correct application of QMS, in relation to the type of product made and the chain strategy to be used. However, in the case of innovative products there is some difficulty in using the correct QMS due to the high degree of uncertainty to which the organisations have been subjected and also the lack of awareness of the most efficient quality techniques for this type of stage, as mentioned by Feigenbaum [START_REF] Feigenbaum | Total quality control[END_REF] and demonstrated in this work.

Conclusions

This work developed a method to check the alignment between type of product, chain strategy and quality management system which can allow organisations, on achieving their correct alignment, to obtain sustainable competitive advantage.

Table 1 .

 1 Innovative x functional products

	Item	Features	Functional Products	Innovative Products
	1	Aspects of demand	Predictable	Unpredictable
	2	Product life cycle	More than 2 years	Up to 2 years
	3	Contribution margin	Up to 20%	More than 20%
	4	Product variety	Low	High
		Average margin of error in the
	5	forecast at the time production is	Up to 10%	More than 10%
		committed
	6	Average stockout rate	Up to 2%	More than 2%
		Average forced end-of-season
	7	markdown as percentage of full	Up to 10%	More Than 10%
		price
	8	Lead time required for made-to-order products	3 weeks or more	Up to 2 weeks

Table 2 .

 2 Supply uncertainty x demand uncertainty

			Demand Uncertainty
			Low (Functional	High (Innovative
			Products)	Products)
	Supply Uncertainty	Low (Stable Process) High (Evolving Process)	Lean Supply Network Flexible Supply Network	Responsive Supply Network Agile Supply Network

Table 3 .

 3 Relationship between type of product, supply chain strategy, quality stage and QMS

	Items	ASN	RSN	FSN	LSN
	Type of Product	Innovative	Innovative	Functional	Functional
	Supply
	Network	Agile	Responsive	Flexible	Lean
	Strategy
	Stage of Quality	Innovation	Conspicuous Consume	General Use	Commoditization
				Six Sigma	Six Sigma
	Quality Management System Hint	Hoshin Kanri	Hoshin Kanri Total Quality Management	Total Quality Management Standards ISO (Second Part Audit)	Total Quality Management Standards ISO (Third Part Audit)