Modern Manufacturing

Book excerpt: Manufacturers worldwide are faced with unprecedented challenges from international competition, changing production processes and technologies, shorter production life-cycles, market globalization and environmental requirements. Fundamental to meeting these challenges is the understanding and control of information across all stages of the Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) process. Modern Manufacturing presents the state of the art in the information-oriented aspects of CIM and Intelligent Manufacturing Systems. Particular emphasis is placed on the impact of new software engineering technologies, the object-oriented approach, database design, hierarchical control and intelligent systems. The contributions are written by experts from Europe and the USA.