Physual Designing Network � Addressing Interlayer Collaboration in Dispersed Teams

Pressure to reduce lead times requires corporations operating in global markets to use innovative approaches to address collaborative performance and concurrent enterprising challenges. Virtual enterprises consist of a wide variety of team structures engaged in a blend of planned and on-demand interactions. In many industries, such as the oil industry, the staffing on project teams is constantly changing. This paper describes a collaborative infrastructure that allows greater flexibility by supporting on-demand interaction in dispersed combination teams consisting of a collocated core team and mix of distributed regular members and occasional contributors. This infrastructure is a technology/method hybrid for value chain collaboration in extended enterprises where ad-hoc interactions occur frequently. The infrastructure is called the physual designing network and it is aimed at supporting inter-layer collaboration by lowering the collaborative entry barriers for occasional contributors, in order to facilitate knowledge contributions from subject matter experts, customers, suppliers and others.