Abstract
The current financial crisis highlights real problems profoundly related to the level of financial knowledge. Some studies suggest that many individuals, including small business owners, do not have adequate financial skills to be able to handle their finances. The term "financial literacy" summarizes the set of knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to enable recognition and understanding of the foundations of personal finance. Informed and literate individuals are able to make responsible decisions. Our paper presents the preliminary results obtained with the Portuguese StudentFinance2012 survey. A total of 612 university students from seven different institutions agreed to participate and complete the survey. The sample has an average age of 23.67 years and is gender balanced. Students were classified in three course areas such as engineering, business and management, or design and tourism. Most respondents frequent a degree course, being the university mostly a public institution. A majority of our students has solely funded by their parents or family. By analyzing the total amount of financial products, we obtained an average of 2.57 financial products by student. To analyze financial literacy, our study developed measures such students' financial involvement, financial knowledge and parents influence and explore it as a function to issues such as age, gender, course area, course type, type of university and parental funding. The results suggest that the financial involvement of students evolves over time (as age increases, the financial involvement also increases) and confirm significant dependence with demographic variables such as gender, age, or course, among others. For the financial knowledge the results are encouraging, with students to show interesting levels of knowledge. We also identified relations of dependence with age, gender and course, among many others. Parental influence was analyzed by the level of agreement with statements related to the perceptions of the influence and behavior of parents about money, budgeting, saving and paying bills. The main results indicate that parents are a positive influence and that studentsare experiencing a financial behaviour that integrates the family.

Abstract
This paper aims to point up the critical topics that need to be addressed towards a fully implementation of lean management as well as the adoption of learning mechanisms and information and communication systems in order to attain organisational differentiation through performance enhancement and integration of management practices that favour business sustainability. Firstly, we will try to explain the complexity of a construction project and how lean principles can be adapted to the construction industry, as well as some practical examples of the adoption of new technologies. Then, it will be explained how knowledge management and learning mechanisms can be critical in attaining a competitive advantage in this sector. Finally, a conceptual model will be presented based on the literature studies and the main results obtained from the focus group conducted with project managers from the construction area.

Abstract
Markets today are characterized by enormous uncertainty in demand that combined with the increasing complexity of new products and competition, has forced companies to adopt new collaboration strategies with its business partners. SMEs need to form non-hierarchical networks where they can complement their capabilities and resources, achieve higher added value and higher control of the business. In these environments, decision making becomes decentralized and operations' planning presents new challenges and becomes more collaborative. An integrated solution for non-hierarchical networks collaborative planning is presented in this paper. The solution proposed includes two collaborative planning scenarios (aggregate and detailed), applied in different phases of non-hierarchical networks' lifecycle, which allows SME's to negotiate prices and delivery times in a collaboratively way. The solution considers requirements from companies belonging to three different industrial sectors, assuring its wide applicability. © 2011 Research Institute for Ope.

Abstract
The last decade has been characterized by times of change, including increasing levels of globalization and competition. Collaboration allowed SMEs to respond effectively to the development of new complex products and services but presented new barriers concerning the management of their business processes and relations with partners. This paper presents a new collaborative aggregate planning for non-hierarchical business networks, where SMEs collaborate in the selection of partners and definition of the operations plan required to specify, manufacture and distribute a custom made products. The proposed approach is based on negotiations undertaken by the partners in order to promote the creation of alternative operations plans and allow a multicriteria evaluation of the involved costs and delivery dates. The proposed approach promotes the reduction of communication between partners, a reactive analysis of changes to planning and associated impact, enhancement of trust (since all partners have the same weight on the decision process).

Abstract
The global industry is currently facing a growing increase in the competitiveness that forces companies to adopt and develop new strategies and methods of production. Therefore, one of the most relevant challenges in manufacturing engineering is innovatively integrating Product, Process and Factory dimensions and life cycles, in a holistic approach, from design to recycling/disposal and reuse. The challenge faced here is the synchronization and simultaneous generation of all three-domain models by integrating manufacturing engineering knowledge into the early stage of the modelling and planning processes. The next generation of factories has to be modular, scalable, flexible, open, agile and knowledge-based in order to be able to adapt, in real time, to the continuously changing market demands, technology options and regulations. Therefore, integration, flexibility and efficiency requirements and the ability to simulate the production life cycle of a factory play a crucial role in decreasing ramp-up and design times. Furthermore they play a crucial role in improving the performance in the evaluation and reconfiguration of new or existing facilities, in supporting management decisions and providing tools that can guarantee real-time performance monitoring. Therefore, it is necessary to research and implement the underlying models and ideas during the foundation stage of a new conceptual framework, which is designed to be implemented in the next generation of factories. This will be supported by suitable Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and digital infrastructures and should lay down the foundations for future applications in this research area the industrial paradigm of "Factory as a Product". In line with the context presented here, we propose the development of factory templates to address the design and operation practices throughout the entire life cycle of the factory. Different dimensions of the factory templates are presented in this paper; they cover the design and creation of the factory, its remodelling and even the disassembly and recycling stages. This entire study takes into account relevant factors such as costs, quality, time, flexibility, environmental and social issues and energy efficiency. Throughout the article, different kinds of models are presented, which describe and adjust the structure of the analysis, design and development of a factory integration project that helps provide a formal analysis of the system. Furthermore, templates integrating the factory's response to internal and external disturbances will also be developed.

Abstract
The design, production and distribution of small series of health fashionable goods for specific target groups of wide impact in terms of market for the European industry as elderly, disables, diabetics and obese people represents a challenging opportunity for European companies which are asked to supply the demand with affordable price and eco-compatible products. Added to this challenge, textile, clothing and footwear manufactures seek for innovative collaborative networking solutions that could provide an entire digital life-cycle for the products and services required by the market. Aligned with this need, the EU CoReNet project aims to design and develop a new smart collaborative consumer-driven framework with the related services and components. This paper addresses the multidisciplinary complexity of customer-oriented and eco-friendly networks for health fashionable goods in particular addressing business requirements analysis, value chain issues, co-planning production and co-design topics in collaborative business processes tailored for high variability of the consumers demand and expectations.