Analysing industrial district performances: A structured approach

The goals of an organization of data and information collected from the European industrial systems and concerning networks of enterprises, mainly small-mid enterprises (SMEs), are many: (a) to offer an intelligent support system (ISS) to industrial analysers when they try to understand if a SME network, either cluster or industrial district, could be enforced by proper financing, or it cannot give sufficient assurance for a new development; (b) to offer to political people a support in understanding the dynamics of these SME networks, in order to be able to take decisions about public politics; (c) to give tools for analysing the performance of these industrial bodies to industrial people, mainly technicians and managers, such to be able to apply new strategies for their improvement; (d) to give information and data to researchers operating in university and RTD centers, such to be able to improve their knowledge about these so important industrial bodies. To reach this goal, the aim of the EU-funded CODESNET (COllaborative DEmand & Supply NETwork) project is to give new ideas and concepts sufficient to drive the attention of the above-mentioned different types of people towards the SME networks and districts. To this aim, a crucial problem must be approached and solved: which model of a SME network should be stated and used as the basis for developing a clear and useful ISS, that is, able to collect information and data from existing SME networks and transfer such data into standard formats, easy to be read by both industrial people and scientific researchers. The present paper describes the theoretical methodology on which the data organization and interpretation adopted in the CODESNET project is based. The application of an original meta-model of SME network, developed in the mentioned project, is detailed according to the following steps. After the meta-model formulation (in Section 2), it is shown how the variables to be measured (such to have a clear understanding of the network status), have to be selected, and how the main issues concerning the design and management of the network has to be classified (Section 3). Then, it will be shown how the archive of both data/information from existing SME networks (for purpose of comparison-based analysis) and the catalogue of technical/scientific reports (for purpose of justifying the analysis considerations) has been organized in an integrated form. The scope is to give at disposal of industrial people the mentioned ISS which allow them to approach some main issues concerning the network design and management (Section 4). An example of ISS application in an Italian industrial district will be presented, such to illustrate the CODESNET results’ usefulness.