Next Generation Manufacturing Systems and the Virtual Enterprise
David Romero1, Ricardo J. Rabelo2, Mauricio Hincapie1, Arturo Molina1
1

CIDYT - ITESM Campus Monterrey & Ciudad de México, México david.romero.diaz@gmail.com, maurhin@gmail.com, armolina@itesm.mx
2
GSIGMA - DAS - Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianopolis, Brazil rabelo@das.usfc.br Abstract: Next Generation Manufacturing Systems (NGMS) will support the Next Generation
Manufacturing Enterprises (NGMEs). Adaptive distributed manufacturing systems seem to be a promising solution for NGMEs to provide increased levels of flexibility, reconfigurability and intelligence to respond to the highly dynamic market demands. Virtual Enterprises (VEs) are expected to be the dominant manufacturing enterprise model in the 21st Century. VEs promise new possibilities where a manufacturing system is not know in advance and has to be structured, optimized and implement from scratch to produce
e.g. one-of-a-kind products. VEs can approach each industrial project with tailored manufacturing systems represented by a temporary integration of processes capabilities and resources capacities from multiple enterprises in order to meet or exceed the quality-, time- and cost- frame requirements of the customer.
VE paradigm represents the future of the NGMEs, and can be also used to provide industrial services in a collaborative way to evolve from physical products to the notion of extended products.
Keywords: Next Generation Manufacturing Systems, Next Generation Manufacturing Enterprises, Virtual Enterprise
1. INTRODUCTION
“The virtual enterprise paradigm is gaining a growing importance in manufacturing as an instrument to help enterprises face the challenges of fast evolving market conditions” (Camarinha-Matos, 2002). Information and
Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been the enabling factor in the reconstruction of traditional industrial paradigms towards the next level of integration in manufacturing enterprises: cell level > shop-floor level > intra-enterprise level
> inter-enterprise level [the Virtual Enterprise] (CamarinhaMatos & Afsarmanesh, 2005). Furthermore, the concept of product has evolved from the physical product to the notion of the extended product as result of a competitive global marketplace where manufacturers have to package their products with additional services to make their products more attractive to the customer. In this sense, Next Generation
Products [extended products] should represent high quality, affordable, fast and customized solutions for the customer, including service provision capabilities such as: real-time diagnostics, maintenance, security, traceability, self-direction, entertainment, convince, responsiveness, reproducibility, etc.
Additionally, these products have to be environmentally friendly, which implies that they have to be made of degradable materials, produced with low environmental impact and designed for recycling (Myers, 2006).
All these trends drive the requirements and developments for the Next Generation Manufacturing Systems (NGMS) towards six grand challenges that imply (1) achieving concurrency in all operations in order to reduce products time-to-market at the same time that products lifecycle tend to shrink [Lean
Enterprise]; (2) integrating human and technological resources to enhance workforce performance in order to operate as a customer-responsive enterprise and continuously improve

management of product variety, product complexity and product manufacturing processes as a source of competitive advantage; (3) instantaneously transforming information gathered from a vast array of diverse sources into useful knowledge for supporting effective decisions-making by humans and machines across the product lifecycle. This is based-on real-time information flows that enable enterprise capabilities for concurrent manufacturing [Totally Connected
Enterprise]; (4) reducing production waste [resources conservation] and