The business environment throughout the world is currently going through
rapid and far reaching change. They are analysing their business
processes and scrutinising ways to make their systems more streamlined
and competitive in order to meet the challenges posed by the Global
Economy. Forming close alliances and integrating the operational
processes with the key suppliers and customers is the mantra every one
is embodying. In parallel and to support this shift in strategic focus
developers are putting forward new concepts in the emerging Information
and Communications Technologies (ICT) to make the integration of
processes among collaborating enterprises as seamless and secure as
possible. Together these developments have yielded a tremendous amount
of new knowledge and will continue to offer us new challenges and
opportunities well into the future. This book brings together the
opinions of a number of leading experts, analysts, academics,
researchers, vendors and industrial practitioners from around the world
who have worked extensively in the area of collaborative manufacturing.
Through individual chapters in this book, authors put forward their
views, approaches and new tools. Still, other authors present a glimpse
of the nature of solutions that may be developed in the near future.
This book is loosely structured to allow chapters which address common
themes to be grouped together. In these chapters, the reader will learn
aU the key issues currently being addressed in production management
research and practice throughout the world.