Tài liệu Next Generation Computer-Integrated Manufacturing Strategies docx

Guest Editorial

Next generation computer-integrated

manufacturing strategies and techniques

A. GUNASEKARAN

Computer-Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) offers a number of use ful and potential opportunities for

improving the competitiveness of manufacturing. The motivation for CIM has been based on the perceived need for manufacturing industry to respond to changes more rapidly than in the past. CIM has potential

applications in manufacturing strategies, such as agile ,

lean and virtual enterprises. Hence, there is a need to

investigate the areas of further development, applica￾tions and implications of CIM in the next generation of manufacturing organizations.

It is axiomatic that computers, computer applica￾tions and integrated (such as enterprise and value

chain wide) computer systems will be applied in next

generation manufacturing companies. The key pro- blem that remains to be resolved is to define where we will apply these systems, how we will apply these systems,

how these systems will be created and how the division

of tasks between the ‘people system’ and the CIMsystem is

decided. The papers that appear in this special issue deal with

strategic frameworks, conceptual and analytical models, and case studies focusing on new architectures, changes

in the organization, technology and people required

for the design and implementation of CIM in order to

enable companies to compe te on flex ibility and

responsiveness. The contributed papers deal with, but are not limited to, the following.

· Strategic and organizational adaptation of Com- puter-Integrated Manufacturing Systems (CIMS)

for 21st century manufacturing competitiveness.

· Design methodologies for CIM systems including

architecture s and evaluation of adaptability for

lean and agile manufacturing, and value chain

integration.

· CIM in a physically distributed manufacturing

environment.

· Enterprise integration and environmental issues as the main objectives in the design and imple- mentation of CIMS.

· Rapid prototyping, virtual design, virtual manu￾facturing and virtual enterprise and CIM.

· Operations Control (productivity, quality, flexi- bility, cost and dependability) in the future CIMS.

· CIM in Small and Medium Enterprises.

· Human factors and CIM.

An overview of the articles that appear in this special

issue is presented below. The paper, ‘Computerization strategy for Small

Manufacturing Enterprises in Hong Kong, by Chung

and Chik, presents the results of an empirical study of computerization in Small Manufacturing Enterprises

(SMEs) in Hong Kong. This study uses a survey as a

research instrument to collect data concerning the organizational and technical system design issues of computerization in Hong Kong SMEs. The strategic

components, including manufacturing initiatives, man- agerial concerns, technological investment and organi- zational change management, are identified and

e valuated. Based on the re sults of this study, a

computerization framework is developed for SMEs to

gain competitive advantage. Sivakumar in his paper, ‘Multiobjective dynamic

scheduling discre te event simulation’ , develops a discrete event simulation based ‘online near-real-time’ dynamic multi-objective scheduling system to achieve Pareto optimal solutions in a complex manufacturing

environment. The approach includes the use of a linear optimization algorithm with multiple objectives and

auto simulation model generation. Manufacturing is

INT. J. COMPUTER INTEGRATED MANUFACTURING, 2001, VOL. 14, NO. 2, 137–139

International Journal of Compu ter Integrated Manufacturing

ISSN 0951-192X print/ ISSN 1362-3052 online Ó 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd

http:/ / www.tandf.co.uk/ journals

Au thor: A. Gunasekaran, Department of Management, Unive rsity of Massachu￾setts, North Dartmouth, MA 02747-2300, USA. e-mail: [email protected]