ABSTRACT
Collaborative forecasting allows sharing and formulating final customer demand forecasts. Collaborative planning allows companies sharing information and collaborating on production and transportation schedules. Customers and suppliers might coordinate each other by observing quantities and production lead times. In collaborative markets, web-based technologies do not require data to be housed in specific proprietary repositories. The risk of opportunistic behaviors is present in alliances and even more in collaborative markets; sharing strategic information in short-term relationships is even more risky. In collaborative markets companies are asked to share information with other companies, which could be interacting with their direct competitors in the future. Moreover, collaborative markets support industry-wide capacity optimization by matching effectively and efficiently demand and supply. Product collaboration services support the creation of inter-company teams working together over the whole product life-cycle: development, planning, procurement, production, commercialization, and returns.
