Decreasing economic life-cycles and market demands, such as an increased demand for more complex and customized products, require new working methods, control strategies and consequently new tools in order to remain competitive. In small batch manufacturing environments, the control of lead-times, quality and cost is very demanding and requires lean and flexible organizations as well as transparent information flows.
Automation requires formalized and reliable information.
The need for coverage of this whole range is imposed by the present requirements for large scale integration. The overall target is to meet the demands for world class competition. The overall objective is to achieve substantial improvements of product realization processes in industry by systematization, integration and automation of the processes of design, process planning and the control of the activities on the shop floor. As regards the research on process planning and shop floor control, the emphasis is on highly varying, small scale manufacturing. The research and development activities are focused on the design and realization of flexible and effective functioning information systems, decision support tools and control systems for the design, planning and execution of manufacturing processes.