Viewing China From Pearl River Delta -Requirements for Industrial Cluster Network Resource Management

摘要

Industrial clusters, closely-knit local inter-firm links, are the network growth poles of the GVC ( global value chain). In Pearl River Delta of China, a huge amount of homogeneous or complementary small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) form fast developing regional clusters in the geographic ranges of cities, counties or even small towns. It is these clusters that established China as the 'World Factory'. Usually, a cluster formed by SMEs may have more than one kernel enterprises instead of a single absolute leader-firm. In a multi-kernel cluster, there often simultaneously exists a variety of business modes, including product-driven, task-driven, project-driven, operations-driven and mixed mode. And the business modes of a cluster evolve dynamically in response to the turbulent changes of the GVC environment. Furthermore, the SME clusters in Pearl River Delta, especially the endogenic ones falling into the traditional manufacturing industrial sectors, such as clothing, furniture, ceramic ware, et al. , thrived on low-cost and extensive resource investment strategies, and lack of sustainable competence against the increasingly fierce global competition. How to realize collaborative operation under the dynamic and multiform business mode of the multi-kernel clusters? How to enhance the internal and external network resource allocation efficiency and elevate the competence of the clusters and the individual firms? How to support the network resource allocation with information systems and accelerate the upgrade and development of the clusters? These are the imperative problems confronting not only Pearl River Delta, but also the manufacturing industry of China. In this speech, requirement analysis for industrial cluster network resource management was performed, based on the case studies of Peal River Delta. The cluster network resource planning (CNRP) system was established for multi-kernel manufacturing clusters based on network coordinated governance, network collaborative operation and network resource optimized allocation. The author believes that CNRP represents the new development direction for integrated manufacturing systems.