SMEcoll

SNS ProjectsSMEcoll SMEcoll For Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs), the establishment of business relationships and collaborations is becoming increasingly important in the face of market globalisation. Multinational companies are investing in strategic procurement programs with a view to drastically reducing their supply bases and focusing on increased spending with a smaller number of strategic partners. Individual firms cannot be good at everything. They must specialise and learn to combine their capabilities with those of other firms and organisations. These collaborations consist of identifying possible partners (e.g. clients or suppliers), providing them with appropriate information, setting up a common environment for communication and finally starting commercial operations. Until the early 90's, the limited resources that SMEs could allocate for such purposes significantly undermined the efficiency of the collaboration. However, recent advances in technology, including the rapid increase of the use of the Internet, suggest that efficient and cost-effective collaboration between SMEs is possible. The SMEcoll project, which is led by Supply Network Shannon and involves 10 partners across 5 countries, addresses the management and control issues with relation to collaboration both at a local and an international level. The project has developed processes to enable companies to • assess whether partnering with other companies can help to achieve its business goals and • facilitate the collaboration process with a workflow-driven process manager and a range of other collaboration tools. These tools are available free to members of SNS until the end of 2008. Contact Denis Kearney for further information on this project (086 8225991). www.smecollaborate.com

Future SME

FutureSME FutureSME is an 8 m€ project supported by the European Union FP7 programme. It will develop a model for manufacturing stretching out several years. As part of this, it will develop affordable and tailored strategic and operational tools to enable small companies survive and thrive in the competitive environment of the future. Involving 9 countries and 26 partners across the EU, FutureSME has 6 Irish partners, including Supply Network Shannon, several manufacturing companies and a number of developers. The overall project leader is the University of Strathclyde. FutureSME will start in November 2008 and this major project will run for 4 years. Please contact Willie Cahill (087 2591014) if you would like further information or would be interested in participating in the regular free training and consultancy events organized by the project.

SMEexcel

SMEexcel is a transnational collaborative project funded by the Leonardo da Vinci Programme and is due for completion in Dec 2006. This project will develop a complete training tool-kit focussed on collaborative strategy development and implementation. The project involves 10 partners in total (including 4 SMEs) across 5 countries (Ireland, UK, Turkey, Poland and the Czech Republic). Click below for more information: SMEexcel Project Page

CODESNET

CODESNET means COllaborative DEmand and Supply NETworks. It is a Coordinated Action under the EU 6th Framework Project aimed at strengthening the organisational structure of Enterprise Networks, like Industrial Clusters or Supply Chain typically composed by small and medium enterprises (SMEs), in order to promote the coordination of services useful for the entire network. The industrial goal is reducing costs of services used by the SMEs, through the collaborative networking of them. The immediate result is the stabilization each SME’s market share. Supply Network Shannon is a minor partner and works closely with the University of Limerick on the CODESNET project. Click HERE for more information

ECOLEAD

ECOLEAD is an "Integrated Project" co-funded by the European Commission within 6th Framework Programme (2002-2006). Commencing in April 2004, ECOLEAD is a 4-year project involving 20 partners from 14 countries across Europe. SNS joined ECOLEAD in 2006 and 5 local companies (Cregg, RTR, Sercom, Litho and AIL) are active on the project as well as the Enterprise Research Centre in the University of Limerick. Further information from the ECOLEAD website at http://www.ecolead.org

Pallet Exchange

The Pallet Exchange Project is an Environmental Protection Agency supported waste reduction project from Supply Network Shannon. This waste reduction program will generate cost savings and possibly revenues, promote a positive public image for the companies, benefit the community, and help protect the environment. The Pilot phase of this project will run for 18 months from October 2006. Further information from the Pallet Exchange section of this site, HERE.

SNS ECO-Network

The 'Establishing an Eco-Industrial Network for SMEs in the Mid-West Region' was undertaken as part of the EPA's research programme entitled the Environmental Research, Technological Development and Innovation Programme 2000-2006. The programme was financed by the Irish Government under the National Development Plan. The project examined how we can solve the problems faced by SMEs in implementing management and technological innovations to improve environmental performance, while at the same time reducing costs. 20 SMEs in the Limerick and Shannon areas participated in this research. See the Environmental section of the site, HERE, for more information.