Financial aspects of a trust-based resource sharing platform

Since cooperation has been identified to be a key factor of future manufacturing firms’ success, manufacturing concepts incorporating cooperation gained increasing interest within research and industry. However, the benefits from a financial standpoint have not yet been investigated thoroughly. Therefore, this paper investigates financial aspects of a resource-sharing platform where manufacturing companies can request resources (in case of shortage) or offer them (in case of surplus) through a central platform. In the first step, the additional costs and revenues are worked out in the context of a resource-sharing network. In the second step, a model is developed in order to evaluate and compare the additional costs (manufacturing, management, administrative, penalty, inventory and distribution costs) as well as the additional revenues (incomes) of a resource-sharing platform. Then, platform-based and direct exchange-based resource sharing algorithms are compared from the financial perspective. Finally, the model is validated and tested with experiments conducted using an agent-based simulation model. The findings (1) can be applied in the design and operation of such a platform, and (2) are helpful for companies who are considering this type of collaboration as a way to increase their competitiveness.