This book will be essential reading and reference for all researchers, engineers and managers concerned with business models, of and IT support for, virtual enterprise and manufacturing networks. It presents a comprehensive text on information infrastructure for manufacturing and enterprise integration, modeling methodologies, and applications of information and telecommunication technologies.
This book explores knowledge and skill chains in engineering and manufacturing in the age of global communications. Information infrastructure involves a range of activities from product planning, engineering, and manufacturing trough transportation, marketing, and repair/upgrade to returns and recycling/disposal. Distinct from the traditional engineering database, life-cycle support information has its own characteristic requirements, -- flexible extensibility, distributed architecture, multiple viewpoints, long-time archiving, and product usage information. Several authors address the architecture of the information infrastructure, its services and its requirements. Others focus on the knowledge and skill chains in: the supply chain, the factory floor, the man-system interaction, etc. The editors' introductory essay provides a unifying framework for these expert and wide-ranging studies.