Network-integrated manufacturing system

Abstract

In this study, systematic integration for networked manufacturing, including information integration, process integration, knowledge integration and organisation integration, is presented. Then, a model of network-integrated manufacturing system (NIMS) is proposed. A wheel of network-integrated manufacturing system (NIMS) details the concept, which includes five integrated rings: the rings of core objects, participants, support centres, functional subsystems and infrastructure. A NIMS model of a Chinese ceramic company (CP-NIMS) is presented to illustrate how the model can be applied to ceramic product design, customisation, production, and delivery.