Sustainability through production networks

Global economic crisis has brought into question sustainability of many industrial enterprises, especially Large-sized Enterprises (LEs). However, the strength of the European economy are not Large-sized Enterprises, but Small and Medium-sized industrial Enterprises (SMEs). As an alternative to LEs there is networking of SMEs into flexible production networks. Inside production network SMEs can collaborate on new product development forming Virtual Enterprise. SMEs collaborating as one Virtual Enterprise can be seen as a sustainable Large-sized Enterprise. However, to achieve sustainability through production networks, i.e. Virtual Enterprises, it is essential to choose an optimal combination of SMEs in Virtual Enterprise formation process. Since it is a complex task that requires the use of multi-criteria decision-making methods, in this paper PROMETHEE method is used.