Abstract

The development of integrated enterprise data information systems unblocks new vistas for the descriptive analysis of industrial textures. It allows tracing very detailed maps of them that bring to light their systemic characteristics and their points of strength and weakness. In the first part a framework of reference is discussed together with the data-management and analytical-descriptive implications of the dramatic changes that characterise economic growth today. In the second part, the results of the "mapping" of Italian enterprises undertaken within the two European Projects DIECOFIS and NESIS for the period between 1994 and 1999 are presented.