G-SIGMA - Group for Intelligent Manufacturing Systems - is part of the GRUCON laboratory located in the Mechanical Engineering Department of the Federal University of Santa Catarina. It was created in 1996 and presently develops research on Virtual Enterprise area using Information Technology concepts. It comprises the virtual enterprise's distributed business process engineering, knowledge representation approaches and the development of applications aiming to reach the autonomous co-operative enterprise integration.

G-SIGMA works intensively in international co-operation programmes such as the Protem-CC (Dedicated Multi-institutional Programme on Computer Science), ESPRIT (European Strategic Program for Research on Information Technology), INCO-DC (Scientific and Technological Co-operation with Developing Countries) and KIT (Keep-in-touch). G-SIGMA is in partnership with the Brazilian Government and the European Community, having a close relation with enterprises of the manufacturing and agribusiness sectors.