In view of increased international competition, manufacturing enterprises are investigating new integrating processes to maintain their competitive position. The set-up of telecooperation systems represents an approach towards a combination of modern communication and information technologies and integration of co-operative processes. However, to make profit of the benefits that the use of the telecooperation systems can proportionate, enterprises need to organise their workgroups, according to some criteria. The aim of this paper is not only to describe the functionality of these systems and their role in the manufacture context, but also to present the main criteria to form efficient distributed workgroups. The paper abo presents two practical cases illustrating the importance of the criteria described.
telecooperation; collaborative systems; groupwork and culture