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In this paper a framework for Extended Digital Manufacturing Systems (EDMS) is presented. It aims at an integrated environment for products, production systems, and business processes. The reference model of EDMS consists of manufacturing entities with different roles and similar structures. The main areas of EDMS are modelling, simulation, analysis, and change management. The integrated activities of EDMS are discussed from the viewpoints of augmented intelligence and integrated collaboration activities. The theoretical application areas of the past, present, and future and the process from ideas to innovative solutions are presented. A real-life example of an intelligent manufacturing environment in which several aspects of the EDMS framework are utilised is introduced.

Knowledge builds on data and/or information that is organized and processed to convey understanding, experience, accumulated learning and expertise. At the moment, the volumes of data and information are quickly growing uncontrollably. The sheer amount of data, that lacks the structure, connectivity and intent, cannot be utilized efficiently later on. There is ever the greater need to transfer this unstructured mass of bits and bytes to meaningful information and to human understandable knowledge, as it is understood in the industry. However, there are major challenges in understanding the essence of information flow that should connect the different design departments and activities to be part of the life-time information of a product, including its processes and services. The paper introduces a vision where the semantically rich product-process information flows through the life-cycle phases – design, manufacturing, services – of a product or a system, and thus increases the content knowledge.

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