A novel approach of networked manufacturing collaboration: fractal web-based extended enterprise

The web-based extended enterprise is a complicated system devoting to manufacturing collaboration by Internet and Intranet. To simplify its implementation and operation, a novel solution, fractal web-based extended enterprise with the fractal structure and the self-organizing operation policy, is raised here. The hierarchical architecture of extended enterprise can be generated through the recursion and iteration of our proposed simple unit, named fractal-agent. And it can be operated by the concise self-similar fractal workflow. Finally, an example of fractal web-based extended enterprise is given, in which a hydraulic machine can be manufactured cooperatively through self-similar networked collaboration style among the manufacturers and among their internal subunits supported by the computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) information platform.