Information technology advances are spawning visions of radically altered modus operandi for commerce, education, business, information storage and receival. Proponents of virtual technology domination offer a world of instant communications, information sharing, and binary commerce. Some express alarm to the electronic visionaries and see an expected world vacated of human interactions, which is populated by e-hermits. The reality is that access to the Internet is becoming pervasive worldwide and affords a virtual community and markets. Governments, education, markets, businesses and consumers are rushing to exploit and adjust to an electronic, virtual world. The exploitation and adjustment to this an 'ether-world' transcends boundaries is a challenge to stakeholders. Public policy, international agreements, education, businesses and consumers face monumental change in the way they live and conduct their lives. As with most paradigms shifts, pioneers rush forward and launch a myriad of new startups with many failing and some standing the test of time and utility. An example is the early pioneers in North America who headed westward to in search of a new vision of riches. They established towns, developed farms, dug mines and began new businesses. However, many of the pioneers moved from one venture to another. Some of their endeavors ended with ghost towns, abandoned farms and mines, and bankrupt businesses. In the end, however, a great nation was born. This author expects the ether-world to go through similar starts, fits, and adjustments before it emerges as a more stable part of the fabric of society.

Turbulent change caused by factors such as changing customer and technological requirements threatens manufacturers through lower product life cycles, profits and bleak survival prospects. Therefore, several companies are stressing flexibility and agility in order to respond, real time, to the unique needs of customers and markets. However, the resource competencies required are often difficult to mobilise and retain by single companies. It is therefore imperative for companies to co-operate and leverage complementary competencies. To this end, legally separate and spatially distributed companies are becoming integrated through Internet-based technologies. The paper reviews emerging patterns in supply chain integration. It also explores the relationship between the emerging patterns and attainment of competitive objectives. The results reported in the paper are based on data from a survey by questionnaire. The survey involved 600 companies in the UK, as part of a larger study of agile manufacturing. The study was driven by a conceptual model, which relates supply chain practices to competitive objectives. The analysis involves the use of factor analysis to reduce research variables to a few principal components. Subsequently, multiple regression was conducted to study the relationship amongst the reduced variables. The results validate the proposed conceptual model and lend credence to current thinking that supply chain integration is a vital tool for competitive advantage.

The advent of the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and the Internet with its subsequent use in the field of supply chains, mainly online shopping; web managed purchasing and online auctions have given rise to complex relationships between buyers and suppliers. The manner in which the buyer-supplier transactions occur have a psychological bearing similar to the transactions occurring between humans in the buyer-supplier organizations. The on-going research to study the psychological aspects of the transactions will use Transactional Analysis as a tool to identify these aspects of the relationship. The essential aspect of this view is that organizational culture plays a very strong role in the way organizations operate, and when two organizations transact with each other the individual culture is bound to play a role in the way the transaction is conducted. There are a number of factors that play a role in bringing the culture to the forefront of the transaction process. It is necessary to study these factors in order to understand why the psychological behavior is actually shown by these buyer- supplier organizations.

Development of IT and its applications have led to significant changes in business processes. To pursue agility, flexibility and best service to customers, enterprises focus on their core competence and dynamically build relationships with partners to form virtual enterprises as customer driven temporary demand chains/networks. Building the networked enterprise needs responsively interactive decisions instead of a single-direction partner selection process. Benefits and risks in the combination should be systematically analysed, and aggregated information about value-adding abilities and risks of networks needs to be derived from interactions of all partners. In this research, a hierarchical information model to assess partnerships for designing virtual enterprises was developed. Internet technique has been applied to the evaluation process so that interactive decisions can be visualised and made responsively during the design process. The assessment is based on the process which allows each partner responds to requirements of the virtual enterprise by planning its operational process as a bidder. The assessment is then produced by making an aggregated value to represent prospect of the combination of partners given current bidding. Final design is a combination of partners with the greatest total value-adding capability and lowest risk.

In the age of manufacturing globalization, individual organizations are finding it increasingly difficult to compete: prices are being driven down, quality demands are being increased and lead times are being reduced. Under these market conditions, it is networks, rather than individual organizations, that compete. The majority of manufacturing organizations operate, at some scale, within 'manufacturing chains or networks.' This is the basis of the 'Virtual Enterprise (V-E).' For V-Es to be viable, they must consistently perform in the way that is required by their stakeholders. Hence, there is a need for tools to allow potential V-E structures to be configured and evaluated: so- called V-E design tools. A key aspect of any V-E design tool is a well-founded way of describing V-Es. This is an early step in the establishment of tools to enable the evaluation of V-E configurations. Such a characterization would support the evaluation of V-E configuration alternatives. Other authors have argued that the individual elements (organizations) and the relationships between them are critical to the performance of the V-E. This paper describes a characterization scheme that draws upon other published research, and is a first step in systematizing V-E descriptions. The characterization scheme is evaluated through a case study.

The business enterprise has never been in greater need of Agility and the current trend will continue unabated well into the future. It is now recognized that information system is both the foundation and a necessary condition for increased responsiveness. A successful implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) can help a company to move towards delivering on its competitive objectives as it enables suppliers to reach out to customers beyond the borders of traditional market defined by geography. The cost of implementation, even when it is successful, could be significant. Bearing in mind the potential strategic benefits, it is important that the implementation project is managed effectively. To this end a project cost model against which to benchmark ongoing project expenditure versus activities completed has been proposed in this paper.

Industry experience a need to shift in focus from internal production planning towards planning in the supply network. In this respect customer oriented thinking becomes almost a common good amongst companies in the supply network. An increase in the use of information technology is needed to enable companies to better tune their production planning with customers and suppliers. Information technology opportunities and supply chain planning systems facilitate companies to monitor and control their supplier network. In spite if these developments, most links in today's supply chains make individual plans, because the real demand information is not available throughout the chain. The current systems and processes of the supply chains are not designed to meet the requirements now placed upon them. For long term relationships with suppliers and customers, an integrated decision-making process is needed in order to obtain a satisfactory result for all parties. Especially when customized production and short lead-time is in focus. An effective value chain makes inventory available and visible among the value chain members, minimizes response time and optimizes total inventory value held throughout the chain. In this paper a supply chain planning classification grid is presented based current manufacturing classifications and supply chain planning initiatives.

Success is highly dependent on the ability of a company to efficiently produce optimal designs. In order to achieve this companies must minimize time to market and possess the ability to make fully informed decisions at the early phase of the design process. Such decisions may include the choice of component and suppliers, as well as cost and maintenance considerations. Computer modeling and electronic catalogues are becoming the preferred medium for the selection and design of mechanical components. In utilizing these techniques, the designer demands the capability to identify, evaluate and select mechanical components both quantitatively and qualitatively. Quantitative decisions generally encompass performance data included in the formal catalogue representation. It is in the area of qualitative decisions that the use of what the authors call 'Informal Information' is of crucial importance. Thus, 'Informal Information' must often be incorporated into the selection process and selection systems. This would enable more informed decisions to be made quicker, without the need for information retrieval via discussion with colleagues in the design environment. This paper provides an overview of the use of electronic information in the design of mechanical systems, including a discussion of limitations of current technology. The importance of Informal Information is discussed and the requirements for association with web based electronic catalogues are developed. This system is based on a flexible XML schema and enables the storage, classification and recall of Informal Information packets. Furthermore, a strategy for the inclusion of Informal Information is proposed, and an example case is used to illustrate the benefits.

The Internet is playing an increasingly important role in enhancing the operations of supply networks as many organizations begin to recognize the benefits of Internet- enabled supply arrangements. However, the developments and applications to-date do not extend significantly beyond the dyadic model, whereas the real advantages are to be made with the external and network models to support a coordinated and collaborative based approach. The DOMAIN research group at the University of Liverpool is currently defining new Internet- enabled approaches to enable greater collaboration across supply chains. Different e-business models and tools are focusing on different applications. Using inappropriate e- business models, tools or techniques will bring negative results instead of benefits to all the tiers in the supply network. Thus there are a number of issues to be considered before addressing Internet based supply network integration, in particular an understanding of supply chain management, the emergent business models and evaluating the effects of deploying e-business to the supply network or a particular tier. It is important to utilize a contingent approach to selecting the right e-business model to meet the specific supply chain requirements. This paper addresses the issues and provides a case study on the indirect materials supply networks.

Coordination of different and often contradicting interests of individual supply chain members is one of the important issues in supply chain management because the individual members can not succeed without success of the supply chain and vice versa. This paper investigates a supply chain dynamic production planning problem with emphasis on coordination. A planning problem is formally described using a supply chain kernel, which defines supply chain configuration, management policies, available resources and objectives both at supply chain or macro and supply chain member or micro levels. The coordinated model is solved in order to balance decisions made at the macro and micro levels and members' profitability is used as the coordination criterion. The coordinated model is used to determine inventory levels and production capacity across the supply chain. Application of the coordinated model distributes costs burden uniformly among supply chain members and preserves overall efficiency of the supply chain. Influence of the demand series uncertainty is investigated. The production planning model is a part of the integrated supply chain decision modeling system, which is shared among the supply chain members across the Internet.

In this paper, we consider the process of the data warehouse creation and population using the latest Internet and database access technologies. The logical three-tier model is applied. This approach allows developing of an enterprise schema by analyzing the various processes in the organization, and extracting the relevant entities and relationships from them. Integration with local schemas and population of the data warehouse is done through the corresponding user, business, and data services components. The hierarchy of these components is used to hide from the data warehouse users the entire complex online analytical processing functionality.

The paper discusses the basic functionality of planning and scheduling in Advanced Planning and Scheduling systems (APS). Three basic planning options - unconstrained planning, constrained planning and optimization are analyzed by use of theory and examples based on test of an APS system. Even though the planning functionality are radically improved compared to MRP and MRP II, the balance between the objectives are found to be too rigid. This conclusion is based on a number of examples, comparing the outcome of different objectives such as constraints based planning versus optimized planning.

Many companies are faced with quality improvement issues on a daily basis but their response to this problem varies. This paper discusses the improvement in the defect reporting system at a medium sized manufacturing company following the appointment of an experienced, motivated, design engineer to be dedicated to that task. It sets out the situation that the engineer inherited and details the changes that were incorporated; it assesses which were successful and which failed. Following a survey of current literature, it was seen that there is little written specifically on the subject of audited defect reporting. It is felt that this study goes some way to filling that void. A successful survey of engineering companies in Southern Hampshire reinforces the principle findings, that the emphasising of the Check part of Demming's Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle is a novel approach to the Quality Improvement Process, and that it has reduced the cost of rework by an audited 80% in a period of two years.

This paper reviews the design and development of a web based Human Resource Management (HRM) system which has as its foundation a 'capability profiler' tool for analysing individual or team roles in organisations. This provides a foundation for managing a set of integrated activities in recruitment and selection, performance and career management, and training and development for individuals, teams, and whole organisations. The challenges of representing and processing information about the human side of organisation encountered in the design and implementation of such systems are evident. There is a combination of legal, practical, technical and philosophical issues to be faced in the processes of defining roles, selecting staff, monitoring and managing the performance of employees in the design and implementation of such systems. The strengths and weaknesses of web based systems in this context are evaluated. This evaluation highlights both the potential, given the evolution of broader Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems and strategies in manufacturing, and concerns about the migration of HRM processes to such systems.

Previously, we reported some preliminary results of our long-term research work on iShopFloor (Intelligent Shop Floor). This paper reports some of our recent work on the implementation of XML-based message services for Internet-based intelligent shop floors. The objective is to investigate XML for message exchange among Internet-based shop floor devices that are represented by intelligent agents. The paper discusses the advantages of using XML for message services and presents our initial implementation. From this implementation, we have seen some advantages, including: (1) simplification and standardization of message services in Internet-based intelligent shop floors; (2) facilitation of the integration of an agent-based scheduling system with other intelligent shop floor systems, including Web-based shop floor monitoring and control systems, etc.

It has been reported that Rapid Prototyping (RP) is one of the enablers of Reverse Engineering (RE). Two separate studies have been carried out to verify the degree of the activities of RP as an enabler of RE. These studies which, are both experimental and theoretical in nature, considered two different components that were reversed engineered using CMM, 3D-laser Scanner and ProEngineer CAD package for final model in Stereolithography system. This involves the redesigning of parts using the original component as a template to retrieve the dimensional information required to rebuild the component on a Computer Aided Design (CAD) based program before the alterations can be made to improve it. The main area of studies is concerned with the interlinking of the two processes stated above. More accurately the computer data transfer of the dimensions of the component straight from the CMM or laser scanning machine on to the CAD based program considered, ProEngineer was used for this application. This would produce the model directly from the data transfer without any necessary physical drawing onto ProEngineer. The model production is generated at a considerable speed at minimal cost to ensure the components suitability for its specific use, giving the designer a physical model of the part. The purpose of doing this is to find a way of transferring data from the CMM or Laser Scanner to the RP system without the use of any other software and to cut down on the time and cost of Product development cycle. In this study these have been achieved.

The problem of caching of information flows is studied and the model of information flows is given. The model is represented as data query stored in cache memory or main memory of computer system. The model is represented as a dynamic system of control with the system of constraints. The system of constraints describes constraints applying on the size of cache memory and main memory. The solution of the model is considered as the dynamic system of decision making.

This paper identifies three essential factors (information infrastructure, executive information system and a new manufacturing paradigm) that are used to support the development of a new business model for competitiveness. They facilitate changes in organization structure in support of business transformation. A SME can source a good manufacturing practice using a model of academic-university collaboration to gain competitive advantage in the e-business world. The collaboration facilitates the change agents to use information systems development as a vehicle to increase the capability of executives in using information and knowledge management to gain higher responsiveness and customer satisfaction. The case company is used to illustrate the application of a web-based executive information system to interface internal communications with external operation. It explains where a good manufacturing practice may be re-applied by other SMEs to acquire skills as a learning organization grows in an extended enterprise setting.

The economic survival of any nation depends upon its ability to produce and manage sufficient supplies of low-cost safe energy. The world's consumption of fossil fuel resources currently increasing at 3% per annum is found to be unsustainable. Projections of this trend show that mankind will exhaust all known reserves in the second half of the coming century. Governments, industrialists, commercial organizations, public sector departments and the general public have now become aware of the urgent requirements for the efficient management of resources and energy-consuming activities. Most organizations in the materials, manufacturing and retail sectors and in the service industries have also created energy management departments, or have employed consultants, to monitor energy consumption and to reduce wastage. Conversely, any sustained attempt to reduce rates of energy consumption even by as little as 0.1% per annum ensures relatively an eternal future supply as well as reduction on environmental and ecological effect. Thus, there is no long- term solution to energy flow problem other than systematic and effective energy management and the continuous application of the techniques of energy management. Essential energy management strategies in support of a sustainable energy- economy are discussed.

As everyone, and every firm, the armed forces are using more and more electronic information, and all the means that can be used to carry this information. This is not something new, but more and more systems, and overall, decision making process are relying on whether the right information is delivered to the right place, on the right time, or not. These are the very classical three questions: 1. Is the 'integrity' of information ensured? 2. Is the information always 'available?' 3. Is the information kept 'confidential?' If you can answer yes to those three questions, you are supposed to be in a 'secured' electronic environment. The way and the means to answer 'yes' to the above questions are gathered in the 'computer systems security - CSS.' However, as soon as your are working with networks, CSS becomes very difficult to fulfill. This is not acceptable as soon as we are processing military information. Furthermore, and still from a military point of view, CSS is suffering from its static nature, and from the fact that it is only a bunch of defensive protocols, methods and process, when military action is mainly offensive.

This paper is intended to address the different technologies available for Web-enabling of the factory floor. It will give an overview of the importance of Web-enabling of the factory floor, in the application of the concepts of flexible and intelligent manufacturing, in conjunction with e-commerce. As a last section, it will try to define a Web-enabling strategy for the application in eManufacturing. This is made under the scope of the electronics manufacturing industry, so every application, technology or related matter is presented under such scope.

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in the national economy. Since manufacturing has become global, the competition is high among manufacturing/service industries to provide quality goods and services at competitive prices. Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) is a generic term for a group of manufacturing technologies that combine both scope and scale capabilities that are making fundamental changes to manufacturing industry. The enablers of CIM play an important role in the implementation of CIM by SMEs to compete in the global market. Considering the importance of enablers of the successful implementation of CIM, the critical success factors for the implementation of CIM in SMEs have been identified with the help of an empirical study conducted with British SMEs.

Within the last few years, a host of value-based metrics like EVA, MVA, TBR, CFORI, and TSR have evolved. This paper attempts to analyze the validity and applicability of EVA and Balanced Scorecard for Internet based organizations. Despite the collapse of the dot-com model, the firms engaged in e- commerce continue to struggle to find new ways to account for customer-base, technology, employees, knowledge, etc, as part of the value of the firm. While some metrics, like the Balance Scorecard are geared towards internal use, others like EVA are for external use. Value-based metrics are used for performing internal audits as well as comparing firms against one another; and can also be effectively utilized by individuals outside the firm looking to determine if the firm is creating value for its stakeholders.

CAD & CAM technologies are being used in design and manufacturing process, and are receiving increasing attention from industries and education. We have been researching to develop a new kind of software that is for web-course CAD & CAM. It can be used either in industries or in training, it is supported by IE. Firstly, we aim at CAD/CAM for optomechatronics. We have developed a kind of CAD/CAM, which is not only for mechanics but also for optics and electronic. That is a new kind of software in China. Secondly, we have developed a kind of software for web-course CAD & CAM, we introduce the basis of CAD, the commands of CAD, the programming, CAD/CAM for optomechatronics, the joint application of CAD & CAM. We introduce the functions of MasterCAM, show the whole processes of CAD/CAM/CNC by examples. Following the steps showed on the web, the trainer can not miss. CAD & CAM are widely used in many areas, development of web-course CAD & CAM is necessary for long- distance education and public education. In 1992, China raised: CAD technique, as an important part of electronic technology, is a new key technique to improve the national economic and the modernization of national defence. As so for, the education. Of CAD & CAM is mainly involved in manufacturing industry in China. But with the rapidly development of new technology, especially the development of optics and electronics, CAD & CAM will receive more attention from those areas.

The system combines the motion control technology and LAN advantages. Usually there are one center computer and several or more subordinate computers, which form star-topotaxy mode. The data transmission strategy makes use of mature database management system SQLSERVER, which can automatically deal with data communication, so the programmer can avoid complicated communication programming. The system construction is simple and mainly oriented to small-middle scale enterprise and CIMS project. By practice, the system has been developed and used for industry production and control successfully.

It's difficult now to disclaim the availability of application of Internet technologies in industry. Originally not intended for industrial automation they nevertheless can be used as a part of a multilevel hierarchical automation system. The paper shows one of the possible solutions. A way to construct Intranet based high level of a hierarchical model of an automated system for a complex industrial object (reactor, power unit, continuous process) is considered. Some schemes of the level construction are proposed. The main point of these schemes is disposition of the Web server in interlevel area to collect data and to keep system integrity. The approach is illustrated on the example of the Novosibirsk Hydroelectric Power Station (NHPS) automated system of maintenance and control (ASMC) Engineering Level.

In this presentation, a new approach for a flexible low-cost Internet extended enterprise (project FLoCI-EE) will be presented. FLoCI-EE is a project in the fifth framework program of the European commission with 8 partners from 4 countries, which started in January 2001 and will be finished in December 2003. The main objective of FLoCI-EE is the development of a software prototype, which enables flexible enterprise cooperation with the aim to design, manufacture and sell products commonly, independent of enterprise borderlines. The needed IT-support includes functions of product data management (PDM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM) and customer relationship management (CRM). Especially for small and medium sized enterprises, existing solutions are too expensive and inflexible to be of use under current turbulent market conditions. The second part of this paper covers the item Web Services, because in the role-specific support approach of FLoCI-EE, there are user- interface-components, which are tailored for specific roles in an enterprise. These components integrate automatically the services of the so-called basic-components, and the externally offered Web Services like UDDI.