Sophisticated Co-operation in Dynamic SME Networks based on Co-operative Planning and Control

Due to the growing competition in a global market, the importance of close co-operation - esp. between small and medium companies - is steadily increasing. The SCOOP project addresses the problem of managing co-operation in dynamic SME networks using an innovative and advanced solution based on co-operative planning and control. The textile and printing industries have been chosen as ideal representatives of highly dynamic business scenarios. Starting with a description of the current problems, this paper discusses the specific requirements for co-operation suppport in both scenarios and describes the resulting architecture of the SCOOP software toolset.