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PM&RG - Product Modelling & Realisation Group

IiMB

Integration in Manufacturing and Beyond

The Integration in Manufacturing and Beyond (IIMB) is a ESPRIT Long Term Research Working Group (Esprit thematic network IIMB 21108, project number BP 622). It has 27 industrial and research participants from 18 European countries organised into 5 subgroups that are shown in figure 1. The kick-off meeting was held in October 1996 and since then a number of research subgroups have been meeting to discuss the extended enterprise of the future. The project was planned to last three years, but has been extended to end in September 2000.

Figure 1: IiMB Organization

1 Objectives of the working group

The objectives of the Working Group are to identify outstanding key research issues, promote the take-up of research results in industry and influence European Union research policy to help in creating the next generation of manufacturing systems. The working group operates by

  • sharing information and knowledge,
  • collaborating on joint publications,
  • organising joint workshops and seminars,
  • forming new research partnerships,
  • exchanging visits and research experience.

The role of the industrial end users is defined as follows:

  • The industry will be active in each group to voice industrial requirements and expectations.
  • Sharing of research results with other industries is encouraged and should be captured
  • Industrial case studies developed by participants should be exchanged during sub-group and full-group meetings.
  • A ‘list’ should be compiled by each sub-group manager of industrial partners who shared IIMB related research.

2 Key concepts

The key concepts in IIMB are learning organisations and extended enterprise:

1. Currently available solutions do not take into account the fact that manufacturing systems should continuously improve themselves by learning, by adopting new technologies, and by adapting to new market conditions. Humans play an essential role in this improvement process.

2. Manufacturing systems become part of larger systems, which comprise the entire value chain, and which take life-cycle responsibility for the products delivered to the market. These larger systems are referred to as "extended enterprises" that are characterised by:

    • global markets,
    • business processes crossing enterprise boundaries,
    • pressures to develop environmentally benign products and processes,
    • emerging computing and telecommunications technologies and infrastructure,
    • manufacturing systems are a part of larger systems.

3 Research areas and sub-groups

For efficient and effective communication and group work IIMB consists of five subgroups working in the following areas and related together as shown in figure 2.

Figure 2: IIMB sub-groups defined according to the business processes for a manufacturing enterprise

  • SG 1. Modelling and Intelligent Control of Manufacturing Systems. The group investigates modelling and intelligent control in co-operative, semi-autonomous manufacturing systems.

  • SG 2. Shop Floor Control Architectures. The group investigates the required changes in Shop Floor Control architectures, given the requirements of continuous learning and change.

  • SG 3. Design Co-ordination. The objective is to develop a methodology for optimising the design process, considered as a business process. One of the results of this subgroup is a framework for Design Co-ordination. The next stage will be to further define and test this framework with industrial participants who have already collaborated in this research.

  • SG 4. Product Data and Knowledge Management. The objective is to extend the existing concepts of Product Data Management to Product Knowledge Management. More specifically, the sub-group will investigate concepts and approaches and methods for creation, capture, maintenance, management, and use of knowledge about products and manufacturing processes in the Extended Enterprise.

  • SG 5. Integration of Planning and Control in Extended Manufacturing. The objective is to define the value chain in the Extended Enterprise, to articulate clearly the possibilities for Extended Enterprise development using emerging networks such as INTERNET for co-ordination of goods and services.

4 The sub-groups of main interest for PM&RG

By participating the IIMB the Product Modelling and Realization Group (PM&RG) of the TAI Research Centre at Helsinki University of Technology expects to enhance its understanding on the big picture of the various aspects related to product development and manufacturing. Topics of particular interest include design experience re-use, information integration, life-cycle issues, and distributed working. The PM&RG is contributing mainly to the activities of the SG 4, exchanges information with the SG 3 and also follows the progress of SG 5.

This page is maintained by PM&RG, Email: Email address
This page has been updated last on the 5.5.1999.
URL: http://www.cs.hut.fi/~pmrg/IiMB.html