VIRTUAL ORGANIZATION BREEDING ENVIRONMENT: EXPERIENCES FROM ITS IMPLEMENTATION IN MEXICO

The demand for high quality products manufactured at low costs with shorter cycle times has forced a number of SMEs (small and medium enterprises) to consider new manufacturing strategies. New business models have successively used in order to cover such market requirements. One of them is the Virtual Organizations Breeding Environment (VBE) model, which could be defined as the evolution of the industry cluster concept, introducing an added-value advantage represented by the creation of dynamic Virtual Organizations (VO) and the incorporation of ICT. This paper describes the theoretical and applied research done by Tecnológico de Monterrey with Mexican SMEs during last years, aimed at the development of VBEs and VOs in the manufacturing and engineering fields.