No abstract

I. AbstractManufacturingplays a central role in successfully competing in international markets. Improving a company '5 manufacturing capability and, consequently itsposture in global markets, requires that the company respond more rapidly to market opportunities. The rate at which new product ideas mature to commodity status is increasing, resulting in a growing emphasis on time-to-market as a key competitive dfferentiator. Realizing these new efficiencies in product development requires that organizations interconnect, software systems interoperate, and individuals interact. These challenges are being addressed by the National Industrial Information Infrastructure Protocols (NIJIP) Consortium in its work to define and develop virtual enterprise technology. This paper presents an overview ofNIIIP technology and discusses aprogram deploying NIIIP technology to establish new standardsfor integrating manufacturing applications, f ocusing on manufacturing execution systems.A recognized position ofleadership in applying inventive and innovative skills to generate new design concepts does not always translate into successful products. Failure to execute efficiently -to translate concepts into manufacturable products -often limits an organization's ability to be competitive in global economies and markets [12].Improving manufacturing requires new levels of flexibility and responsiveness in identifying and addressing emerging market opportunities; this capability is often referred to as agile manufacturing. Customer requirements, product designs, suppliers, manufacturing equipment, and trade regulations continually change and addressing and exploiting these changes directly impacts product success and market share [6].Today, the incompatibility of information processing systems and technology is one of the major inhibitors to agile manufacturing. Tracing threads ofinformation flow and flow discontinuities, throughout an enterprise will show varying degrees of agility. The past several decades have produced impressive advancements in information technologies that have, in turn, enabled advances in automating product development. However, these same information technologies that were once leading instruments of progress are now 20 SPIE Vol. 2913 • 0-8194-2315-7/97/$10.00 Downloaded From: http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/ on 06/17/2016 Terms of Use: http://spiedigitallibrary.org/ss/TermsOfUse.aspx

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract