Internet-based manufacturing: A review and a new infrastructure for distributed intelligent manufacturing

Global competition and rapidly changing customer requirements are forcing major changes in the production styles and configuration of manufacturing enterprises. Traditional centralized manufacturing systems are not able to meet these requirements. In recent years, the internet has become the worldwide information platform for the sharing of information and data. Information processing is an important challenge in an internet-based manufacturing environment, and must facilitate distribution, heterogeneity, autonomy and cooperation. This paper reviews recent trends and major developments in internet-based manufacturing. Broad categories of distributed information management are identified, based upon the development of computer integrated manufacturing, and the possible direction of future research is indicated