A computer architecture to support the operation of virtual organisations for the chemical development lifecycle

Fine chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturers focus on new product development as a means of growth, with time to market as a key driver. Time to market improvements are, however, limited by a company's infrastructure; for example, ill-house design and manufacturing capacity, ability to respond to a dynamic environment etc. Ill many marketplaces, there is all increasing trend towards outsourcing and operating networks of specialist providers. Different specialist companies may be involved at all stages in the R&D lifecycle, providing set-vices ranging from basic research or safety testing, to industrial scale manufacturing. This Outsourcing concept can be generalised to support advanced notions of collaboration such as loosely-coupled but highly integrated networks of companies cooperating as a single enterprise. These networks call be described as dynamic Virtual Organisations (VOs) (Denichenko, 2004). This paper will outline a computer based architecture developed to address the operational difficulties associated with the creation and operation of this type of VO and present it within the context of the chemical development lifecycle.