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Guest Editorial Next generation computer - integrated manufacturing strategies and techniques A. GUNASEKARAN Computer - Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) offers a number of useful and po tential opportunities for improving the competitiveness of manu facturing. The motivation for CIM has been base d on the perceived need for manufacturing industry to respond to changes more rapidly than in the past. CIM has potential a pplications in ma nufacturing strategies, such as agil e , l ean 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 g eneration 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 wi ll be created and how the division of tasks between the ‘ people system ’ and the CIM system is decided. The papers that appear in this special issue deal with strategic frameworks, conceptual and analytical models, a nd case studi es focusing on new architectures, changes in the organization, technology and people required for the design and imp lementation of CIM in or der to enabl e companies to compete on flexibility and responsiveness. The contributed papers deal with, but a re 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 architectures and evaluation of adaptability for l ean and agile manufacturing, and value chain integration. · CIM in a physically distributed manufacturing en vironment. · Enterprise integration and environmental issues as the main objectives in the design and imple - mentation of CIMS. · Rapid prototyping , virtual desig n, 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 i ssue 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 Enterpr ises ( SMEs) in Hong Kong. This study uses a survey as a research instrument to collect data co ncerning the organizational and technical system design issues of computerization in Hong Kong SMEs. The strategic components, in cluding manufacturing initiatives, man - agerial concerns, technological investment and organi - z ational change manage ment, are identified and evaluated. Based on the result s of this study, a computerization framework is developed for SMEs to gain competitive advantage. Sivakumar in his paper, ‘Multiobjective dynamic s che duling discrete 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 Computer Integrated Manufacturing ISSN 0951 - 192X print/ ISSN 1362 - 3052 online Ó 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd http:/ / www.tandf.co.uk/ journals Author: A. Gunasekaran, Department of Management, University of Massachu - setts, North Dartmouth, MA 02747 - 2300, USA. e - mail: agunasekaran@umassd.edu one of the most complex elements of the supply chain a nd he focuses on manufacturing to demonstrate the capability that may be extended in future to the entire supply chain. The author has implemented the system a t a semiconductor back - end site to test the solutions. The impact of the syste m includes the achievement of world - class cycle time, improved machine utilization, reduction in the time that plann ers and manufacturing personnel spend on scheduling, and more predictable a nd highly repeatable manufacturing performance. In a ddition, it enables managers and senior planners to carry out ‘what if’ analysis to plan for the future. Because of the exigencies imposed by the market, production management must take into account and optimize the exchange of data with the environment of the firm (clients, providers and partners) . Information technologies such as the Internet can provide SMEs with appropriate solutions. Caillaud and Passemard in their paper, ‘CIM and virtual enterprises: a case study in a SME’, propose a methodology to analyse and design a n extended production management system. Their a griculture c ooperative c ase study illustrates the defini - tion of a solution dedicated to the needs of reactivity in synergy with its partner s’ network. CIM requires cross - functional cooperation, and the involvement of employees in product and process development. A successful CIM initiative in SMEs must have top management involvement and commitment a nd a CIM compatible organizational infrastructure, which includes the requisite skills, appropriate training a nd education , and adequate incentives and rewards. Top management must commit the resources necessary to acquire the required technology and bring about any necessary changes in the organizational infr astructure. Top management must likewise be willing to accept the l ong - term consequences of their decisions. SMEs play a n increasingly important role in the competitiveness of many industr ies in the areas of product and process innovation, flexibility, and in the development of innovative management meth ods, organizational con - ventions, and human resource practices. One of the ways that SMEs can achieve a competitive advantage in manufacturing is through the implementation of CIM. To promote a better understanding of organizational issues pertaining to the implementation of CIM in SMEs, a framework is proposed by Marri, Gunasekaran, McGaughey and Grieve in their paper, ‘Implications of organization and human behaviour on the implemen - tation of CIM in SMEs: an empirical anal ysis’ , for use in examining and explaining the organizational ramifi ca - tions of CIM. A literature review and an empirical study provide the foundation for the proposed framework. With the rapid development of transportation and Internet technology, more and more businesses are b eing org anized as manufacturing networks of different units. Some of these units are wholly owned by the Core Company, while others are outsourced to service providers. The formation of a virtual enterprise is b ecoming a growing trend as companies concentrate upon lean manufacturing, core competence and economic benefit. Studies indicate that the a dministra - tion and management of these networks, which involve a number of partner companies with dissimilar business natures and which are mostly geographically dispersed, is an important issue to be addressed. Owing to the diverse interests, competence and business culture of individual partner companies, the selection of manu - fa cturing partners would be an essential success factor. In addition, th e capability of the information flow infrastructure is another consideration since it affects the performance of the virtual network. Lau and Wong in their paper, ‘Partner selection and information infrastructure of a virtual enterprise network’, attempt to address both of these issues with the objective of showing how small companies can make use of the emerging technology. A case example is presented to il lustrate the manufacture of electronic pagers via the virtual enterprise network. Cutting pieces of given shapes and sizes from an object of larger dimensions with minimal material loss is a practical problem whose optimal or suboptimal solutions have great economical value in many applica - tions. The solutions of this problem often require a utomated tools, which may not be achievable for SMEs. Ahonen, Alvarenga and Provedel in their paper, ‘A client - broker - server architecture of a virtual enter - prise for cutting stock applications’, propose an a pproach based on the concept of virtual enterprise using a client - bro ker - se rver architecture as an imple - mentation model. Impleme ntation of Statistical Process Control (SPC) in an automated environment requires a number of issues to be addressed. Changes in sample data distributi on and statistical properties, such as indepe ndence, will affe ct the use and interpretation of SPC procedures; changed monitoring and adjust - ment techniques will influence the subsequent deci - sion making; at the same time, automation could fa cilitate implementation of SPC with other control techniques, In the paper, ‘SPC in an automated manufacturing environment’ , Cai, Xie and Goh discuss the potential of combining SPC with eng ineer - ing process control methods. Comparative analysis b etween tr aditiona l SPC methods and SPC combined with f e edback control is presente d. Actual and simulated data are used to illustrate the procedure, which, because of its self - tuning ability, could greatly reduce s yste m re - adjustment, while most of the Guest Editorial 138 advantages of traditional SPC are simultaneously pre served. SMEs have gained competitive advantage by using Just - In - Time (JIT) , Total Quality Management (TQM) , a nd Information Technology (IT). Cellular Manufactur - ing ( CM) has received less attention from SMEs. The paper, ‘Experience of a Small to Medium Size Enter - prise in the design and implementation manufacturing cells’, by Gunasekaran, McNeil, McGaughey and Ajasa reports the findings of a case study on the application of Group Technology (GT) in an SME. A framework for the design and implementation of Cellular Manufactur - ing Systems ( CMSs) is proposed. The framework is examined and explained in the context of the case study. The first part of this paper examines the nature of CM as well as its strategic value to manufacturing firms. The second part focuses on the design and implementa - tion of CMSs. Finally, a case study conducted at a small company in England is used to demonstrate the a pplication of the framework. Efficient management of product information is critical to the enhancement of corporate competitive - ness. Kim, Kang, Lee and Yoo in their paper, ‘A distributed, open, intelligent product data management system’, explain the design and development of a distributed, open, and intelligent product data manage - ment system. First, the authors summarize the require - ments for Product Data Management (PDM) systems and explain them using a design scenario. Sinc e product data are often managed in distributed comput - ing environments, Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) is employed to ensure the interoperability among distributed objects. Standard formats of data and knowledge, such as the Standard for Exchange of Pr oduct model data ( STEP) and Knowle dge Query an d Man ipulation Lan guage (KQML), are used to achieve openness. Then, they developed a workflow management system that pro - vides an integrated manag ement of task processes and information flows. Wh ile designing the system, the main emphasis is given to dynamic process adaptation, which i s much demanded by product development processes. U se of intelligent agents is proposed to achieve the adaptation at run time. A method of agent cooperation and communication is described. The agents are also used to implement content search f or enhance d product data services. To date, many general procedural mode ls to formulate the design process and to assess the qual ity of desig n have been described by industrialists and researchers. Despite similarities, all suggested meth - odologies contain various types of information that provide few possibilities for practitioners to consider users’ reaction towards product attribu tes. In practice and in a majority of cases, designers and manufacturers deploy huge investments in research and development and in product designs that still have to be used with a complexity of preferences by customers. The model presented by Mosuavi, Adl, Rakowski, Gunasekaran and Mirnezami in their paper, ‘Customer Optimization Route and Evaluation (CORE) for product design’, addresses the need for interactions between design and market needs. A method to translate customers’ qualitative requirements into design attributes is intro - duced in CORE. The customer’s satisfaction level for each product attribute is th en evaluated, offering guidelines to designers for improvement i n product design. Acknowledgments The Guest Editor of this Special Issue has been overwhelmed by the response to the call for papers for ‘Next generatio n computer - i ntegrated manufacturing strategies and techniques’. Each paper was reviewed by at least two referees. The Guest Editor gratefully ackno wledges the assistan ce provided by the Editors of the Intern ational Journal of Computer - Integrated Manu - facturing (Professors Dave Williams and Steve Newman) and more than 20 anonymous referees who reviewed manuscripts for this Special Issue. Guest Editorial 139 . Guest Editorial Next generation computer - integrated manufacturing strategies and techniques A. GUNASEKARAN Computer - Integrated Manufacturing (CIM). further development, applica - tions and implications of CIM in the next generation of manufacturing organizations. It is axiomatic that computers, computer

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