Alfamicro was founded in 1983, with the objective to do research consultancy and engineering services to support advanced re-engineering and integrated IT solutions for SMEs. Telecommunications and multimedia applications complement the solutions developed and implemented in the field. Alfamicro develops applied research with the aim of further developing the technologies utilised in the implementation of new working paradigms such as collaborative work in virtual environments, namely virtual enterprises and the extraction of knowledge from large amounts of distributed data to create tools with the objective of supporting the decision making processes of companies, namely SMEs. Alfamicro has developed a large number of integrated projects applied to SMEs in Portugal and elsewhere. The main sectors addressed are: automotive, food, furniture, textiles, garments, plastics, plastics moulds. Alfamicro had and continues to have a central role in the creation and development of the Portuguese Automotive Suppliers cluster of 150 SMEs and their links with both clients and suppliers. The applications engineered for these companies include: integrated collaborative product development using commercial and R&D developed products through customization and specific integration. Multimedia is being used for presentation, visualization and training, namely to capture and extract reusable knowledge from the experience achieved with industrial best practice cases. Enterprise networking is a prime concern in our projects to deliver decision support tools enterprise that provide key performance indicators (KPI) at strategic, tactical and operational level of enterprises operations in dynamic collaborative environments. Virtual work environments knowledge has been developed mainly in the area of product development by using platforms based on desktop multimedia conference connected to CAD and ERP systems. 3D modeling applied to the furniture supply chain has also been developed. Alfamicro keeps on top of the technology by participating in R&D projects and then applying effective technology transfer methodologies to apply those results in solutions for real SMEs needs.
