Defining collaboration rules in mechatronic Industry

Small and medium companies in order to survive in the global market should promote the creation of partnerships and business networking. Thanks to business networks, in fact, they can reach efficiencies, improve their knowledge and increase their degree of internationalization. The industrial district is a very common type of business network model, especially in Italy. Belonging to an industrial district increases companies inclination to sign inter-firm collaboration contracts such as alliances, outsourcing and joint ventures. However, some Italian districts, mostly those recently constituted and localized in the south of Italy, such as the Sicilian Mechatronic District (SMD), lacks of actual governance and support structures which concretely should allow them to exploit the potential benefits of industrial district membership. To solve these problems, companies belonging to the SMD are implementing a project to develop a new managerial tool to facilitate business networking potential and a new technology platform to support that tool. This paper proposes a service-oriented approach based on the definition and run of strategic business rules to facilitate collaboration within the district. To develop such value-added service, the research has been conducted by using data from an empirical survey performed on a sample of firms belonging to the Sicilian Mechatronic District.