Post mass production paradigm (PMPP) trajectories

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Post mass production paradigm (PMPP) trajectories

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University of Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany

Hermann Kuehnle

Received December 2006 Revised June 2007 Accepted July 2007

Abstract Purpose – The paper intends to contribute to interpretations of present and future developments in manufacturing and manufacturing research. It designs hypothetical expert consolidated projections for the future of manufacturing with the focus on social impacts from information and communications technologies (ICT). Design/methodology/approach – In order to obtain valid projections, Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolutions has been applied to production sciences. Since, the paradigm shift to post mass production has become evident, it is clear that manufacturing will be of network type. Since, the point of a “normal science” (Kuhn) is not yet reached, empirical and methodical work is exploited, especially expert discussion results, technology forecasts and field surveys, to draw the baselines for further developments, focussing on development lines on global, regional as well as company scale. Findings – The paper sketches organisational set ups and ICT applications for future manufacturing in order to be able to point out induced effects on other trends and drivers (especially social and societal). Major changes in role and future behaviour of manufacturing could be verified. Research limitations/implications – The paper assumes a specific driver/impact constellation, which emphasises socio-technical relations and focuses on organisation and ICT use in manufacturing environments as decisive and limiting influences. Other socio/technology interrelations are not regarded as intensively and could be future research fields. Implications on the methods and the instruments to be used for production networks could be sketched. Practical implications – Some of the methodologies may be downscaled and applied for companies in order to define future strategies. On global, on regional as well as on company level, relevant results may be considered as elements of a future networked manufacturing world. Originality/value – Trends and drivers for future manufacturing have been newly put into network interrelations in order to obtain impact priorities and interaction hypotheses. Ongoing developments are envisioned as embedded in a general paradigm change. The paper draws from extensive research work on the field. It addresses researchers as well as practitioners dealing with manufacturing companies’ strategy development. Keywords Strategic manufacturing, Organizational theory Paper type Conceptual paper

Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management Vol. 18 No. 8, 2007 pp. 1022-1037 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1741-038X DOI 10.1108/17410380710828316

This work has been partly funded by the European Commission through the IMS Project Gnosis, the IST Project Adrenalin and the projects of the AMI-Communities as well as the Growth projects Evolution II and TNEE. The author wishes to acknowledge the Commission for their support. The author wishes to acknowledge his gratitude and appreciation to all the project partners for their contribution. BMBF funded the project Stratema – Wachstum durch Wandlungsfa¨higkeit und produktnahe Dienstleistungen, Land Sachsen-Anhalt funded the project Verteiltes Produzieren. The author wishes to acknowledge the Ministries for the support.

Introduction Industrial production is undergoing a considerable change in consequence of shifts in conditions, technological progresses and improving infrastructures. Pressurised by the results of lean manufacturing (Ohno, 1988; Womack et al., 1990; Bennett, 1996; Liker, 2003), accustomed mass production reached limits. Fewer restrictions, faster developments of markets and technology spread have modified the basic assumptions for mass production and shifted the scientific paradigm. Exhaustive post mass production paradigm (PMPP) work has been done within the EU program intelligent manufacturing systems (IMS) (initiated by MITI, more than 100 partners involved), based on the general perception, that not just technology and markets but especially social impacts and increasing availability of resources anywhere and anytime trigger these developments strongly. The general belief was that mass production of the familiar type is bound to run into trouble globally. There was a wide perception that the established scientific paradigm hits limits; observed phenomena could not be explained by application of existent theories. The Gnosis (knowledge systematisation in manufacturing) approach (GNOSIS, 1994) interpreted all observations on the basis of Kuhn’s (1962) theory of scientific revolutions. For post mass production, critical drivers and main restrictions could be identified in order to determine expected developments for the global future of manufacturing. The objective was to establish forecasts for appropriate enabling technologies and methods of communication as well as knowledge sharing across the boundaries of companies, technical domains, nations, time and space. These forecasts were basic inputs to explain the mechanisms for new manufacturing management principles. Central point of all findings was that saturated markets and decentralised availability of knowledge were the main drivers of the events (Figure 1). Resulting frameworks included soft artefacts (Tomiyama, 1997), virtual manufacturing (Ku¨hnle and Martinez, 2000), knowledge management and enabling technologies and integration (Gaines et al., 1995). In the practical field, a number of new management approaches and production principles could be observed, containing elements of the PMPP; substantial steps were to overcome the Tayloristic functional principle of labour division (Figure 2). The most important manufacturing philosophies presented were agile manufacturing (Kidd, 1994; Goldman et al., 1995), holonic manufacturing (VanBrussels et al., 1998; Deen, 2003; Brennan et al., 2005), bionic manufacturing (Okino, 1993; Ueda, 1996) and fractal factory (Ku¨hnle, 1995; Ku¨hnle and Schmelzer, 1995). Emphasis was set at renewal of companies culture, organization and management. Main feature was that human creativity and improvisation was given higher decision power. Meanwhile experience shows that all concepts developed face difficulties in implementation because of the impossibility to handle complexity (Webb et al., 2005), so inter organizational structures were configured as supply chains, virtual enterprises, extended enterprises (CCamarinha-Matos and Afsarmanesh, 2005) pointing at the emergence of a strongly information and communications technologies (ICT) supported networked manufacturing world. To answer questions about the nature of this new manufacturing world, additional work was carried out within the last two years exploiting the interrelations of the trends and drivers elaborated. The cross impacts of driving forces – the integrated approach Continued trade liberalisation and reductions in barriers to trade have accelerated international flows of information, goods and services. The major impact on

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Crisis

- Growth in reputation - Increasing of Industries - Conflicts between society and companies - Competition between developing and developed countries - Rapid market - High efficieny

M1 Globalization of the markets M2 Global competition M3 Worldwide Benchmarking M4 Mass production leads to environmental problems M5 Market saturation (readiness for new products)

1024

Normal Science

R1 Limit of the qualitative growth R2 Limit of the natural resources R3 Limit of the elimination possibilities R4 Uncontrollable effects by an extensive use of technology

Development forecast

Expected results Driving factors Limiting conditions

S1 Development gab between developing and developed countries S2 Change in values S3 Increasing requirements on human capital S4 Increasing complexity of capabilities S5 Organizational knowledge bottleneck S6 Innovation hostility

M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 Market Resources R1 R2 R3 R4 Sociology S1 S2 S3 Technology T1 T2 T3 T4 T5

T1 Limits of manufacturing technologies T2 Rapid modification of technologies T3 Increasing risks T4 Uncalculable long-term effects T5 Limits of planning

- Cooperative networks - Globalization of businesses - Resolution of the enterprise boundaries - Demand for improvement in work environment and safety - Increase of performance - Limited markets - Extended cooperation forms - Rapid progress of information technology - Environmental regulations - Modular organization units - Knowledge systematization - Virtual products and processes - Life cycle concepts / Modified life cycle - High expectations

Revolution

- Inflexible Organizations - Conventional production systems - New technical solutions are avialable - Education of the population exceeds ability requirements of work - Low productivity

New Paradigm

Figure 1. Gnosis – knowledge systemisation in manufacturing – research approach following Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolutions

Pre-Science

Agile

Post Mass Production Paradigm

Bionic Fractal

Holonic

Figure 2. Production paradigm change trajectories unfolding important manufacturing philosophies and concepts

Lean Production

Scientific Revolution

Traditional Management and Taylorism Mass Production Paradigm

manufacturers has been the higher availability of resources as low-cost labour and manufacturing capacity, increasingly compelling to move towards sourcing parts and components globally (NGM, 1997). Other key driving forces were identified as shortening product lifecycles placing a premium on speed to market; rapid declining

costs of transportations and communications and especially social issues (Anderson and Bunce, 2000). Nevertheless, most forecasts on developments of manufacturing have been one-dimensional technology based. The Gnosis work has provided a set up to sketch forecasts on the base of a multidimensional view. It differs from the eclectic paradigm, the probably most important multi-causal approach so far, covering three aspects (OLI) (Dunning, 1993). Four driver fields: market, social impact, resources and technology are regarded. It aims at results that are valid on a global scale, and are not restricted to local/national perspectives. Evolution and innovation in manufacturing is thus also to be viewed as a social process that is linked with technologies or technical systems, resources as well as with markets. While many considerations were based on the assumptions of driving multiple forces, independent from each other, it seems to become more and more evident, that the driving forces influence each other (Figure 3). Research on innovation has to acknowledge as well that the social and political systems, markets, technologies as well as resources are heavily interacting (Lundvall, 1988). Markets or the existence of technologies (knowledge) may attract resources and create a climate of social acceptance. On the other hand, overheated progress of technologies may generate constellations were big markets simply “ignore” the existence of extremely useful new products. Especially, the use of advanced ICT devices in networked environments causes considerable efforts to reach higher acceptance. Also these difficulties have brought up discussions about the important role of national innovation systems and regional innovation systems as specific interpretations of systems innovation (Freeman, 1995), with strong cross impacts between different innovation fields.

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Markets

Resources

Society

Markets + Markets +

Technology Society

Resources

Technology + Technology

Mass Production

PMPP

Studies Assumption

Figure 3. Evolution of driving factors and their interrelations and assignments to production philosophies and frameworks

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There is significant evidence that within the PMPP all tends have to be regarded as interrelated/linked entities. A workshop-based method (4 F) for synthesising these interdependencies has been applied to discuss strategic issues for the future of manufacturing companies (Table I). Based on cross impacts and links between the trends and drivers, general, local and company specific trajectories can be determined and evaluated for strategy formulation. Trends with crucial and limiting impact may be selected in order to determine parameters and values for strategic early warning.

Phases of the 4 F method Task

First phase is to find all trends linked to a company’s future. Find the trends in society, business, economy and technology with relevance to our company.

The second phase in the process is to filter all strategic issues with respect to markets, technology, society, etc.

Third phase is to format all strategic issues. This includes an analysis and search for drivers of the situation, the identification of links between the drivers, the reconfiguration of links and the definition of easy scenarios.

Evaluation

Editing of the extracted and relevant trends. Modifying the trend-database.

Setting up a SWOT-Analysis to filter the trends with the highest impact and to identify strategic chances.

Computer based modelling of the Feedback Diagram to analyse the verified linkages.

Input

100-300 actual and structured trends (trend-database) 50-75 relevant and structured trends Trend-database

50-75 relevant and structured trends

25-30 fundamental trends

25-30 fundamental trends 3-Layer-model (Global environment, company specific environment, company) SWOT-analysis (strength, weakness, opportunities, threats)

Feedback diagram

Trend-impact-matrix

Network thinking

Cross-impact-analysis

Output/result Tools and instruments

Table I. 4 F trend formatting method – phases, tasks, tools, instruments and outcomes

Participants

Trend-workshop incl. Brainstorming or Brainwriting session Managing board Project assistants Consultants

Last phase is concerned with the transformation from abstract results into practical actions for companies to react immediately on strategic issues. Indicators are defined to monitor future developments that allow continuous focusing on important aspects. computer based network analysis and set up of according trend-impact-matrix Search for leading indicators for the observation of the active trends Definition of appropriate indicators Feedback diagram

Trajectory forecast An enormous amount of attention is drawn to surveys on “new” concepts of manufacturing, which technology progresses will provide. The general over-optimism in the take-up of predicted technologies however makes these technological forecasts deliver much less than promised. Time lags, market failures or path dependencies (sunk costs, institutional rigidities, and network effects engaging older technologies) that affect adoptions are important causes (Shapira et al., 2004). Moreover, believes in societies as well as human resources education and training levels become crucial factors defining the speed of the developments. In this outline, the trajectories proposed will not primarily consist of technological components. The focus will be on the study of cross impacts of technology on other key drivers. However, all application cases showed that a common base of understanding about the technological possibilities should be provided as a start. Therefore, some of the most important technology trends are sketched, having impact on the future of manufacturing in order to make aware of the technical potential involved. More and new trends can always be added by exploiting publicly accessible data (http:// trendchart.cordis.lu/tc_workshop_prev.cfm). Based on these inputs, workshops may be started with the objective to synthesise trajectories. Technology forecast input Concerns about low-cost competitors drove technological forecasts, to emphasise the adoption of high value, innovative manufacturing approaches by: . new product development technologies such as modelling and simulation; . the use of technology for sustainable manufacturing; and . knowledge management practices to ensure effective supply integration. Integration of manufacturing process techniques with biomaterials and micro- and nano-technology to produce the next wave of high value products and production technologies is one of the conclusions (BMED, 2002). Linkage and connectedness will be most important attributes (Cooper et al., 2006). Special emphasis is to be put on embedded ICT. It is seen to be crucial in the development of the knowledge-based and networked enterprises involving manufacturing at nano-scales, also by fusion of “bio” and engineering (FuTMaN, 2003). The network will be everywhere, in enterprises, in products and on the consumers’ side (Barbasi, 2005). By diffusion of ICT, considerable performance leaps may be expected. Important features will be ambient intelligent technologies, mobile devices for collaboration, shared processes, databases, standards and integration architecture infrastructures. Others see (CVMC, 1998) driving technology spheres as: . adaptable, integrated equipment, processes, and systems that could be readily reconfigured; . manufacturing processes with minimized waste production and energy consumption; . innovative processes to design and manufacture new materials and components as well as biotechnology for manufacturing; . system synthesis, modelling, and simulation for all manufacturing operations;

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.

.

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.

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technologies that could convert information into knowledge for effective decision-making; product and process design methods that addressed a broad range of product requirements; enhanced human-machine interfaces; educational and training methods enabling the rapid assimilation of knowledge; and software for intelligent systems for collaboration as the most critical directions.

Minimised resource consumption, less disposal, and less dependency on material and labour resources are challenges manufacturing is facing (compare also to the Gnosis successor MONOZUKURI now being announced as national Japanese manufacturing strategy). The integrated manufacturing technology initiative (IMTI, 2000) further suggests that manufacturers achieve higher levels of improvement by newly engineered materials, micro-electromechanical systems – MEMS, nanodevices, biological processing, and freeform fabrication techniques. There will be an increased utilization of unobtrusive networks of low-cost sensors in manufacturing control systems. Significantly, technologically progressive companies are viewed in the context of a network of knowledge-based innovation relationships. IMTI highlights that all enterprise systems and processes will be interconnected seamlessly and draw on a deep base of science capturing experience to enable design, manufacture, and support of products with unprecedented speed, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness. Enforced ICT applications, especially modelling and simulation are envisioned as extremely important to commercial manufacturers’ efforts that “quickly innovate, design, and produce the “right product right” the first time” (BMED, 2002). Additional progresses are expected in the development of shared process, database, standards and architecture infrastructures, so simulation systems will be able to address modelling of products, manufacturing processes, and life-cycle performances that will permit simulation at various levels of resolution. The ability to use powerful 3D systems supported by (ambient) virtual and augmented reality, will become an important manufacturing skill (Santoro and Bifulco, 2006). Emerging collaborative working environments, making extensive use of telepresence, will offer a ubiquitous computing infrastructure composed of resources providing a new blend of activity-oriented, context-aware flexible software services supporting patterns of human interactions, human to machine interactions and collaborative gadgets, which all interact in a dynamic and pro-active fashion (Pallot et al., 2005). The collaboration intensity may go well beyond the states of context awareness between collaborating entities. This has massive restructuring of today’s applications as a consequence and requires a re-visiting of current functionalities as well as product bundles (Boronowski et al., 2005). Furthermore, future working environments may consist of hybrid spaces, composed of virtual and actual features. A hybrid virtual real environment is an optimal infrastructure for creative collaborative work. Visualisation of products and processes allows effective collaborative analysis of new ideas, experimenting to test different ideas, collaborative problem solving and distribution of tasks.

Dependable mechanisms allow novel degrees of collaboration between all involved entities since it is reliable and provides an intelligent way to solve problems and to support humans to achieve goals. The key for success and dissemination is seen in the way that the features are provided (simple, focused and non-distracting, behavior models by agents). Increasingly mobile knowledge workers may be embedded in multiple team forms, as professional virtual communities. A professional virtual community is an association of “individuals” explicitly pursuing an economic objective identified by a specific knowledge scope. It aims at generating value through members’ interaction, sharing and collaboration. This interaction is optimized by the synergic use of ICT-mediated and face-to-face mechanisms (Kakko et al., 2006). The synthesis of all predicted features results in a fast emerging networked manufacturing world. The ICT devices required for intensive participation – P&P – may become available for everyone on the globe (Figure 4). The efficient use however depends on high training and education levels. Based on these technological forecasts, several expert teams with research and company backgrounds studied selected interrelations. For specific ICT interactions, the discussions with experts had been extended to an online survey (Pallot, 2007).

eProfessional

Virtual Laboratory

Professional Virtual Community

Collaborative Workspace

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Knowledge Community Extended Enterprise

Living Laboratory

Virtual Enterprise Supply Chain

Alliance

Virtual Organisation

Inter-organisational Contexts Agile

Post Mass Production Paradigm

Bionic Fractal

Holonic Lean Production Scientific Revolution Traditional Management and Taylorism

Mass Production Paradigm

Figure 4. Production paradigm change trajectories unfolding important inter-organisational manufacturing philosophies and concepts

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Global manufacturing structures – technology impacts on social drivers Manufacturing is a means of satisfying higher societal objectives, and the current state of “making things” therefore has to be placed in a larger societal context (Committee on New Directions in Manufacturing, 2004). Technology innovation causes more or less far reaching changes of individual and social life. Trends toward differentiated forms of luxury; well being, safety, health and wellness will enforce. Deregulation and smart shopping consumers are manufacturing implications with good prospects for new, sustainable business models and good prospects for public acceptance of new technology. Companies will increasingly use ICT to do manufacturing. Ubiquitous computing, reacting on explicitly formulated needs of actors, will be a wide spread instrument for collaboration in manufacturing industry within the next ten years. Most important properties are seen in context awareness and various features of embedded functions. Delphi studies on Collaboration in Ubiquitous Systems (Serrano, 2007), carried out with 51 experts (16 countries, 4 continents) confirm that “IP connectivity anywhere and anytime” is becoming a reality at short sight, implying the establishment of new social structures. Whereas a large majority of experts agree that a lot of actors will not trust the security or privacy mechanism of ubiquitous technologies, more than 70 per cent of the experts consider plausible the generation of a form of central intelligence within a delimited space within less than ten years. On the global scale manufacturing and the knowledge behind will be increasingly virtual/invisible and may therefore be suspected by groups in society to run “out of control”. Global structures will induce the demand for supra national regulations. Manufacturing companies abilities on these sectors could force manufacturing to make enormous efforts (Tylecote and Conesa, 1999) to maintain the social acceptance for their activities, e.g. by engagements in public problem issues and its solutions. The globally widening income gaps, enforced by value collisions and differences in legal rights interpretations could increase tensions resulting in more regulations concerning manufacturing also. Increasing competition calls for something like co-ordinated globalisation and global governance systems. Enhancing credibility and trust in the sustainable use of the tremendous power of technological knowledge might become a major issue for future manufacturing companies. Industrial and other actors will need to accept that they are seen as responsible for various things that were traditionally regarded as externalities, and will need to account (in general terms) for these effects of their ameliorative actions (Miles et al., 2003). Results from expert group sessions. Manufacturing companies will have to accept much more transparency of and access to decision-making processes which directly affect their businesses. This will be a tremendous task of “navigation in politicised waters” where highest sensibilities for emerging risks become crucial capabilities. By developing codes of conduct, companies will have to be interested to demonstrate their commitment to ethical principles, to comply with all relevant laws and regulations around the world and to show beyond doubt that such conduct is a fundamental part of their values and corporate culture. Moreover, manufacturing companies will increasingly be expected to go beyond financial reporting and to manage and report the social and ethical impacts of their activities on the wider societies where they operate. Responsible business conduct will be beyond applicable laws and regulations.

Other interesting elements are seen in the platform-independent video connectivity, as video-based applications on the web will be growing very fast due to a high demand, the wearable computing and connectivity that should allow “nomadic” people to stay connected with their collaborative environment even within an immersive arena. The convergence of shared workspace, wiki and blogging into a single collaborative web application; the contextualisation approach of collaborative web application to better support groups of individuals in their collaborative working context will support remote working styles. eProfessionals might play a key role in productivity and competitiveness. The attractiveness is seen in reduced hours wasted in daily transportation and improved quality of life and better work/learning/life balance. Local impacts of resources and social drivers Technologies have the power to shape the values held by a society. The analysis of the relationships between resources and territory highlights the system effect created by the strengthened links between the economic, social, political and cultural actors sharing the same geographical space within a context of reticular interrelations constructed at the global level. There is a “place effect” which directs the action of actors. This effect is economic, political, social, cultural and ideological. It is this effect of place which leads to the structuring of local systems (functional clusters), as a result of the territorial arrangements and regional settings (Holbrook and Wolfe, 2002). If knowledge and resources concentrate in the same place, powerful poles may emerge, as technology will be attracted. High innovation dynamic in “Islands of sustainability” with local competition offer excellent opportunities for local niches and lead markets for new technology, representing strong bases for high competitive global business (Fleury and Fleury, 2006). Results from expert group sessions. There will be dramatic changes in societies and work live. “Blurred industry carriers” characterize the ability of people to put highest priority on being able to be employed and becoming more and more attached to Professional Virtual Communities, which may cause serious IPR protection problems for manufacturing companies. Producing high end knowledge will frequently happen in PVCs. In an ICT enabled functional region, the events will be more and more driven by entanglements between the networks of individuals inside and outside companies. Collaboration will be expanded beyond the current concepts into complex organizations spontaneously emerging from dynamic versatile environments. Collaborative teams may turn the enterprises into densely interconnected networks. Again advanced ICT applications might build up major barriers for innovations in manufacturing. These barriers might be predominantly seen in the lack of general acceptance and the resulting social climate. In order to overcome these problems, much bigger efforts from governments (or states, cites, NGOs) will be demanded that create positive impacts on social climate and regional cultures in general. Grow up of living laboratories for the involvement of citizens in the innovation processes and considerable efforts in dissemination are possible effects. The most radical change in business trends may be expected in the shift from individual productivity toward interpersonal productivity. Therefore, collaboration spaces will have to focus on supporting interpersonal productivity. Innovation and creativity support as well as collaboration with regional clusters and communities of practice will be essential elements of the successful business. These trends will lead to

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the necessary emergence and development of new collaboration concepts, such as collaboration awareness and knowledge connection. Partnership within regional innovation clusters and on-line communities as well as involvement in business alliances are other identified issues. The availability of resources in combination with markets attracts technology even in fast cycles as the latest development of China demonstrates. Too fast movements may cause barriers by political systems or social forces, caused by resource consumptions and FDIs. New protectionism, initiated by influential citizen groups on regional level might become an issue, local level policy may interfere with manufacturing implications. New policy networks need to be built that bridge the gaps that have resulted from the progressive dispersal of power, resources and knowledge throughout economies and societies. Fundamentally, future governance may be about making local choices between the different and sometimes divergent “pillars” of sustainability. Example results from a workshop on company level. The trend and drivers interaction may be downscaled and detailed to company level. A European office furniture company applied the 4 F methodology (Klopp and Hartmann, 1999) as sketched in order to support the development of the strategy process. Taking into account the changes in working styles, meeting culture and collaboration possibilities, offered by the near future ICT developments, completely new “office philosophy and conception” product lines could be sketched. A long-term strategy for innovation and high value services could be consolidated, providing a leading market position. Figure 5 shows a result of the three step, “Format” applied to 12 filtered trends, clearly identifying communication technology (6) as the most active element, strongly affecting meeting culture (9) and home office (4). Not only the support of environmental sustainability but also better quality of life and more time with less transportation was emphasised to meet higher societal objectives. Filtered out and formatted was “the home office” trend (Figure 6) as decisive for future office equipment design. One of the limiting indicators defined was the data transmission rate supported by ICT infrastructure.

13 Innovation and Communication

10 Office World over 20 years

4 Home Office

9 Discussion Culture

3 Decentral Units

5 Optimal Conferences Rooms

1 Demand 8 Conferences Meetings

Figure 5. European office furniture manufacturer – schematic set up of formatting trends by cross impact analyses and expert evaluation

7 Ecology Transport

11 Conference Furnitures 12 Number of Competitors 2 Competition Situation 6 Communication Technology

Ho Of me fic e

Mo of dific m a cu eetin tion ltu gre

M fac anutur ing

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Company Patents

ase

rch

Pu

R&D Company Specific Environment

Modification Design- of meetingOffice culture DirectTechnology Selling of CommuMobilnication Office Telework

Global Environment

Conclusions Globally, a manufacturing world of collaborative ICT is emerging. Human resources policies should put a premium on collaboration skills, ICT capabilities and readiness for IP connection anywhere and anytime, as these will be the decisive factors. Dedicated training activities aimed at promoting team working on a world wide basis are necessary for the emergent concurrent way of work. As manufacturing companies are generally confronted with expectations that they should offer low skill jobs, the “digital gap” could be a major challenge in the manufacturing companies’ regions. Ambient intelligence and connection of expertise, knowledge and creativity will be important features. Open globally distributed data sharing networks, “Social Webs” could link people, organizations, and concepts. Business legal entities will be complemented by social legal entities. Cutting edge knowledge and high skilled individuals will be increasingly organised outside of manufacturing companies in professional virtual communities or comparable organisations. Legal trends towards much more flexible and mobile work are already a reality and will progress. New worker types, as the “e-professional” may emerge making use of collaborative working environments and relying on permanent internet connectivity and social touch in the web applications. An expected shift from individual productivity toward interpersonal productivity might force manufacturing companies into stronger involvement in regional clusters, communities of practice and on-line communities as well as business alliances. A shift of power towards professional community structures is expected, so companies are likely to experience

Figure 6. European office furniture manufacturer – focussing on relevant company trends

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that individuals’ working contracts will be managed by these organisations and communities. The classical approach of an enterprise to invest in the required resources and thus to plan and realise production processes by using its own resources will change dramatically. Decreasing numbers of single enterprises will be able to provide all manufacturing resources as well as competencies necessary for the realisation of fast changing customer demands. Reponses to new order volumes will be rather re-linking or renegotiating links with network partners and contributing to the common trust base by highest reliability. “Atomisation” of production systems and flows into intelligent units will enable every unit to manage and control its flow process autonomously. Humans and units as well as units and units will communicate or even negotiate. This will be an utmost challenge for interoperability and data security resulting in the complete revision of enterprise resource planning systems’ architecture and man-machine interfaces. Products and value adding services will increasingly rely on intelligent embedded devices, affecting the users’ individual security and privacy. Anticipating problem areas, synthesised with own sustainability priorities should direct the companies’ public relation activities. Accounting may have to provide transparency in all areas of sustainability and to highlight areas of corporate social and environmental responsibility, pointing out successful contributions to higher societal goals. As increasing numbers of people will neither be able understand the mechanisms of the (also networked) products nor classify the risks of the products and processes, deeper involvement of people in development and innovation, e.g. by offering open source or living laboratories, might become an important company activity. Manufacturing will have to develop and apply new types of methods and tools, supporting linkage and reconfiguration as well as acquisition of high level plug and produce, plug and participate and concurrent work skills. Mastering complexity will be one of the major challenges for future manufacturing. A specific production network science for developing and incorporating new networking instruments may appear. Any resources must be saved during product life cycles and in production phases. Environment, health and safety become prioritised issues inside and outside the companies. Full commitment to general ethical principles and even anticipated actions to cope with globally emergent problem issues (i.e. global children well being, animals’ protection) will be key elements of a sustainable strategy. Manufacturing must not remain with “no harm” evidences; visible improvements in important sectors and substantial contributions to better life could “manufacture” its future. References Anderson, C. and Bunce, P. (2000), Next Generation Manufacturing Systems (NGMS), White Paper, CAM-I, Burleson, TX. Barbasi, A-L. (2005), “Network theory – the emergence of the creative enterprise”, Science, Vol. 308. Bennett, D.J. (1996), “Lean production and work organisation”, International Journal of Operations and Production Management, Vol. 16 No. 2, Special Issue. BMED (2002), Modeling and Simulation in Manufacturing and Defense Acquisition: Pathways to Success, Board on Manufacturing and Engineering Design, Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences, National Research Council, National Academic Press, Washington, DC.

Boronowski, M., Herzog, O., Knackfuss, P. and Lawo, M. (2005), “wearIT@work – empowering the mobile worker by wearable computing – the first results”, in Pallot, M. and Pawar, K.S. (Eds), Proceedings of the 1st AMI@Work – Communities Forum Day, Nottingham. Brennan, R., Christensen, J., Gruver, W., Kotak, D., Norrie, D. and Leeuwen, E. (2005), “Holonic manufacturing systems – a technical overview”, in Zurawski, R. (Ed.), The Industrial Information Technology Handbook, Industrial Electronics Series, CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL. Camarinha-Matos, L.M. and Afsarmanesh, H. (2005), “Collaborative networks: a new scientific discipline”, Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, Vol. 16, pp. 439-52. Committee on New Directions in Manufacturing (2004), New Directions in Manufacturing: Report of a Workshop, National Research Council, Washington, DC. Cooper, R., Evans, S., Gregory, S. and O’Brien, C. (2006), “Design-make-serve, delivering products and services to the modern world”, Discussion document for the UK Manufacturing Professors Forum, London, July. CVMC (1998), Visionary Manufacturing Challenges for 2020, Committee on Visionary Manufacturing Challenges, National Academy Press, Washington, DC. Deen, S.M. (2003), Agent Based Manufacturing – Advances in the Holonic Approach, Advanced Information Processing, Berlin. Dunning, J.H. (1993), Multinational Enterprises and the Global Economy, Addison-Wesley, Wokingham. Fleury, A. and Fleury, M.T.L. (2006), “Understanding late-movers in international manufacturing”, Proceedings of 6th European Operations Management Association (EurOMA 2006), Glasgow. Freeman, C. (1995), “The national system of innovation in historical perspective”, Cambridge Journal of Economics, No. 19. FuTMaN (2003), “The future of manufacturing in Europe 2015-2020, the challenge for sustainability”, Final Report March 2003, available at: http://ec.europa.eu/research/ industrial_technologies/pdf/pro-futman-doc1-final-report-16-4-03.pdf Gaines, B.R., Norrie, D.H. and Lapsley, A.Z. (1995), “Mediator: an intelligent information system supporting the virtual manufacturing enterprise”, Proceedings of 1995 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, New York, NY. GNOSIS (1994), Intelligent Manufacturing Systems: IMS Test Case 7: Knowledge Science Institute and Division of Manufacturing Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, available at: ftp://ksi.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/IMS/GNOSIS/TC7 Goldman, S.L., Nagel, R.N. and Preiss, K. (1995), Agile Competitors and Virtual Organizations, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, NY. Holbrook, J.A. and Wolfe, D.A. (2002), “Social capital and cluster development in learning regions”, Knowledge, Clusters and Regional Innovation: Economic Development in Canada, Queen’s School of Policy Studies and McGill-Queen’s University Press, Kingston. IMTI (2000), Integrated Manufacturing Technology Initiative – Integrated Manufacturing Technology Roadmapping Project – An Overview of the IMTR Roadmaps, IMTI, London. Kakko, I., Lavikainen, M. and Glotova, T. (2006), “Network oasis: new practices for emergent collaborative working environments”, in Camarinha-Matos, L.M., Afsarmanesh, H. and Ollus, M. (Eds), Network-Centric Collaboration and Supporting Frameworks, IFIP International Processing, Boston, MA, p. 224. Kidd, P.T. (1994), Agile Manufacturing: Forgoing New Frontiers, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.

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