This paper presents a conceptual model development for Australian small and medium manufacturing enterprises (SMMEs) collaboration in a global supply chain environment. Specifically, it focuses on the design of a production distribution network model for SMMEs. The approach permits the use of any combination of participants; suppliers, manufacturers and distribution centers in order to find the optimum participant configuration to fulfil final customer demand. The parameter for the optimum solution is based on the minimum cost and time of the production and distribution process. Genetic algorithm (GA) was selected to optimize the participant configuration in the model. Due to the complexity and extent of the paper, it was presented in two sections. The first section deals with the conceptual development of a holistic collaborative production distribution network model for Australian SMMEs and the automatic generation of the initial population of chromosome in GA. The second section of the paper details the rest of the GA as a solution approach for the model. In the end, an example of applying the algorithm for the list of participants involved in the network model is presented.