Internet Based Collaboration in The Manufacturing Supply Chain

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CIRPJ-161; No. of Pages 9

CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology xxx (2011) xxxxxx
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cirpj
Internet based collaboration in the manufacturing supply chain

D. Mourtzis *
Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems and Automation, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Aeronautics, University of Patras, Patras 265 00, Greece
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Article history: Available online xxx Keywords: Management information system Scheduling Supply chain management XML
This paper discusses the collaboration among manufacturing companies regarding planning and coordinating their manufacturing activities. The analysis considers a real-life distributed manufacturing scenario. The suggested model facilitates collaboration among these networked organizations. This model is implemented in the form of an Internet enabled software framework, offering a set of intelligent characteristics, including virtual organization, scheduling and monitoring. The main objective is to support co-operation and exible planning and monitoring across the extended manufacturing enterprise by utilizing information sharing. The software framework, is based on Internet oriented technologies and protocols, such as the Extensible Markup Language XML for data exchange. 2011 CIRP.
1. Introduction Over the last decades the local economy has been transformed to a global and highly competitive economy. The globalization of the markets that came along with technological innovations reshaped the value added chain in the global manufacturing network [1]. Industries started to operate globally expanding the limits of their business. The export of nished goods to foreign markets has been the dominating theme in the international trade up to the 1990s and gained even more attention the last decade [2]. The decentralized manufacturing approaches, that have replaced centralized practices, have evolved further, aided by the Internet, which coordinated the efforts of the manufacturing network [3]. Decentralized approaches for manufacturing have been studied extensively [2,4], showing their benet in delivery times compared to centralized scenarios. Currently the competitiveness of a company is mostly dependent on its ability to perform well in dimensions of cost, quality, delivery, dependability and speed, innovation and adaptability to demand variations [5]. Modern manufacturing companies, in order to improve their competitiveness on the market, need to establish efcient strategic co-operation with their business partners [6]. Whilst in the previous decade, attention had been given to optimizing the manufacturing processes, now is the time for the supply chain from suppliers to customers [7] to be co-ordinated quickly and efciently. The supply chain management system aims at a faster and more exible coordination among a company, its customers and its suppliers within the chain [8]. The supply chain comprises geographically dispersed facilities, where raw materials, interme-
* Tel.: +30 2610 997262; fax: +30 2610 997744. E-mail address: mourtzis@lms.mech.upatras.gr. 1755-5817/$ see front matter 2011 CIRP. doi:10.1016/j.cirpj.2011.06.005
diate products, or nished products are acquired, transformed, stored, or sold and transportation links that connect facilities towards the ow of products [9]. The importance of a long-term relationship among a manufacturing rm and its suppliers has been emphasized in the literature of supply chain management. The co-ordination among participants in a supply chain [10] is essential to such a relationship. To face the competition, companies have to establish a stronger, strategical and pro-active partnership. It is evident, that in order for the collaboration among the companies to be achieved, the execution of business operations, based on intelligent forms of collaboration [11] should be improved. The results of more than 20 case studies imply that smaller companies run the risk of being permanently excluded from integrating their logistics operations in the supply chain. However, the advent of the Internet and the concepts of electronic business, open up new perspectives for small- and medium-sized enterprises [12]. Strader et al. proposed an IT infrastructure framework for supporting management of electronic virtual organizations by utilizing Internet and Intranet technology throughout the production life cycle [13]. Another approach suggests modeling and analyzing the logistic interdependencies across supply chains, the understanding of which enables the supply chains to better control their process reliability [14]. Agent based approaches are discussed for capacity allocation in distributed enterprises, characterized by complex organizations and geographically distributed production capacities contended by many product families [15]. Agent-based control systems have been developed later, based on real-time systems [16], which are considered as a promising perspective for the industry. The manufacturing environments are in great part characterized by uncertainty, whereas most production planning approaches assume perfect information and a static deterministic environment [17]. Real-time schedule monitoring and ltering approaches
Please cite this article in press as: Mourtzis, D., Internet based collaboration in the manufacturing supply chain. CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology (2011), doi:10.1016/j.cirpj.2011.06.005
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2 D. Mourtzis / CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology xxx (2011) xxxxxx
browser
call
Servlet
data exchange, the eXtensible Markup Language XML has been adopted [21,22].
instantiate
send JSP use
send
2.1. Distributed planning and order monitoring

call Database
JavaBean
Fig. 1. ModelViewerController implementation concept.
based on statistical throughput control have been described for recognizing and evaluating the impact of disturbances and changes in production ow [18]. Currently production planning, which is a major issue for a supply network is based on information ow between autonomous enterprises, which is asymmetric and in part uncertain. Mainly this is attributed to the different goals of the stakeholders and their opportunistic stance [19]. This paper discusses the dynamic collaboration among a network of manufacturing companies and focuses on planning and coordinating their manufacturing activities. A exible supply chain planning and monitoring model that facilitates the collaboration of the networked organizations is discussed. This model is implemented in the form of an Internet based software framework that utilizes the XML protocol for data exchange and integration. The Java based implementation, supported by the web technology with the adoption of the XML standard for data exchange assures a high degree of openness, modularity, interoperability and platform-independency of the developed system. Further to that, the proposed approach seems to be very suitable for manufacturing small medium size enterprises (SMEs) owing to its low cost, reduced complexity, high adaptability and expandability and ease maintenance, in comparison with other more rigid approaches. The paper presents the overall concept and the modeling approach as well as its implementation and application in a real-life manufacturing SMEs network. The data is related to the plan and production status of the collaborating companies. 2. The collaboration framework This research work suggests an Internet based software framework that facilitates the coordination and planning of manufacturing activities. The web application is based on the so called design patterns that allow reusability and maintenance of the web application. Specically, the ModelViewController (MVC) pattern is recommended to be used for interactive web applications [20]. In Fig. 1 is presented the MVC implementation concept. In order for a high level of integration and automation in the cooperation among the companies to be achieved, in the level of
The coordination framework is based on the assumption that each company plans its own production, considering the availability of its facilities, the workload and the information on due dates, based on a 4-level modeling approach of a manufacturing system [23]. This approach consists of factory level, job shop level, work center level and resource level as presented in Fig. 2. This model is exible and recongurable enough, to be adapted to the structure, characteristics and requirements of different types of manufacturing systems or production networks. Corresponding to the hierarchy of facilities there is also a hierarchical break down of the workload consisting of orders, jobs and tasks [23]. This method is based on the generation of a set of alternatives for searching through the solution space. A set of three adjustable parameters is used for guiding the search: the maximum number of alternatives (MNAs), the sampling rate (SR) and the decision horizon (DH). These parameters inuence the quality of the solution and the computational effort to make a decision. MNA controls the breath of the search; DH controls the depth of the search, whilst SR determines the accuracy of the estimation of the alternatives consequences. The evaluation of the alternatives is made using different sets of criteria based on cost, time, quality and exibility. The method supports the development and incorporation of user dened decision making criteria, in order to fulll specic objectives of the manufacturing systems or networks [2124]. The same procedure is repeated by every company that produces the individual components of a product. Fig. 3 represents the plan of n companies, involved in the manufacturing of a product, namely company 1, company 2, . . ., company n in the form of n individual Gantt charts. For company 1, Task 11 is assigned on Resource R11, Task 12 on Resource 12 and Task 1n on R1n. For Task 11 and Task 12 there is some progress made and is depicted in the shaded part of the task representation. In the same way, the tasks are assigned to the resources for every company. Scheduling of tasks in company 2 depend directly on the schedule of tasks in company 1, Task 21 can start only if Task 1n has nished. End dates of tasks in company 1, are start dates for company 2 and so on until every company can schedule its production. Scheduling information of every company should be shared by the other companies depending on it. 2.2. Collaboration scheme Each company shares planning information with its supply chain partners. Company n-1, based on the schedule of company n2 is aware of the end date of the production, and based on the due date for delivering to company n, can schedule the production for a
Factory
Job shop 1 Job shop 2 ... Job shop n
Level 1
Level 2
Work-center 1.1
...
Work-center 1.m
Level 3
Resource 1.1.1
Resource 1.1.2
...
Resource 1.1.k
Level 4
Fig. 2. The 4-level modeling approach of a manufacturing system or network.
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D. Mourtzis / CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology xxx (2011) xxxxxx 3
R1n R12
Task 1n
Company 1
Job 1n Job 11 Job 2n Job 21 Job nn Job n1
Companies
Task 12 Task 11 time Task 2n Task 22 Task 21 Task nn Task n2 Task n1 time time
Company 1 Company 2 Company 2 Company n Company n
Resources
R11 R2n R22 R21 Rnn Rn2 Rn1
time
Fig. 4. Supply chain plan.
Fig. 3. Plan and production status of each company.
exchanging data related to the plan and the production status of the companies that are collaborating. These modules are as follows, Fig. 5: Monitoring module (SPIRIT-M) collects information on the production status, the availability of resources and products, the scrap and the consumption of man-hours. Planning module (SPIRIT-P) implements the planning and scheduling of manufacturing operations, based on a 4-level hierarchical model. Scheduling is based on the techniques of operations research, the decision theory and the simulation for allocating resources to manufacturing tasks. The planning method together with the 4-level production network modeling approach, is exible enough to adapt to changes and disturbances which may occur in a dynamic supply network, such as: the addition or removal of partners and orders, highly customized products, lack of resources or lack of materials [2426].
certain time window. The individual plans are shared to the collaboration module, which performs a sort of merging with the objective to achieve a plan for all the cooperating companies. The information shared is in an aggregated format, meaning that it includes the starting and ending of jobs in every company, without sharing the information concerning the resources required for every task of a job to be performed, as shown in Fig. 4 [21,25]. 3. Software system architecture and implementation The approach discussed has been implemented in the form of a software system, namely that of the supply chain integration SPIRIT. It consists of three modules that communicate by
COMPANY 2
GUI forms ODBC SPIRIT-C forms JDBC
COMPANY 1
GUI forms ODBC
Orders
Legacy DB
Schedule
SPIRIT-C Database
Orders
Legacy DB
Schedule
SPIRIT-P forms JDBC
SPIRIT-P forms JDBC
Orders Products
SPIRIT-P Database
Orders
Schedule
SPIRIT-P Database
Orders Products
J SPIRIT-MP D B forms C
SPIRIT-MP Database
COMPANY 3
Fig. 5. Communication scheme.
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Collaboration module (SPIRIT-C) is a web based workspace for sharing information on critical production parameters, such as the status of the orders, the inventory, the planning as well as the scheduling data. These software components were installed on a so called server computer running the necessary infrastructure that is a web server, which is responsible for delivering the data to the client computers. The web server used was the Apache version 1.3 that can handle Secure Socket Layers SSL a module that implements data encryption. In order for Apache to execute Java based software such as the Java Server Pages JSP and Java Beans, it needs a servlet container engine. For this purpose the Jakarta-Tomcat version 3.2.2
was selected as it is suggested by the Jakarta foundation since it complies with the servlets and JSPs specications [27,28]. There is only one instance of the collaboration module accessible through the Internet by all the cooperating companies. Spirit-M and Spirit-P are installed locally in each company whilst it is possible for one or more modules of the system to be installed. Company 1, uses Spirit-P for planning but there is no need for Spirit-M since company 1 uses another application for this purpose. A link has been implemented among Spirit-P and the legacy systems of company 1 to exchange information on the resources. Information from Spirit-P is shared to the Spirit-C module. Data exchange among the modules of the Spirit software are implemented via a set of XML based interfaces complying with
Fig. 6. Example of a schedule in XML format for product Levier Bascule set 165.
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Presentation Layer Client1 Web Browser Client2 Web Browser Client3 Web Browser Interface
Business Layer Java Bean
Data Layer
Web Server Database Java Applet XML Module

Fig. 7. System architecture.
the Document Type Denition DTD specication. A DTD denes the content and the structure of an XML document [21]. XML is used in order to exchange information on the orders issued and on each companys schedule as shown in Fig. 5. A small portion of an XML le that represents schedule data about the production of one of the companies is as shown in Fig. 6. In the case study discussed in this paper, Spirit-P installed in company 2 exchanges data with
their legacy system, Spirit-P installed in company 1, exchanges data with the other company 1 legacy applications and Spirit-P that is linked to Spirit-M, in the form of the Spirit-MP application, exchanges information with the applications in company 3. SpiritP and Spirit-M exchange information with Spirit-C in XML format. All three modules of the SPIRIT software are based on the 3-Tier paradigm. This architecture, as presented in Fig. 7, includes 3 layers, the data, the business and the presentation layers. The presentation layer is the client part of the application. It consists of a web browser that is used to communicate with the business layer through Internet or Intranet. The software was tested in MS Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. The business layer is that in which the business logic resides. The business layer provides data manipulation and data management functionality, and includes the Planning component, which is implemented as a Java Bean [27,28]. Data are extracted from the database by using the Java Database Connectivity JDBC. These data are represented internally in the system using Java language attributes and variables. Data are processed as needed, for example, the scheduling component retrieves due dates, workload, and facility information and generates schedules respecting the production constraints, such as due dates, the suitability and availability of resources, the sequence of tasks, etc. The business layer also includes the XML standard based module, for exchanging data with other application [21,27,28]. The business layer implementation should be platform independent meaning that it should be implemented such a way that is could be executed in computers running different types of operations systems like MS Windows, Linux, Unix, etc. For this reason the Java programming language was selected. The Java based implementation of web
Fig. 8. Scheduling database schema.
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4. Industrial case study This work is based on a real life distributed manufacturing scenario and the analysis considers three companies, working in close cooperation in order to produce a nal product. The product is specied by the order placed by the customer. The proles of the companies participating in this supply network are the following: Company 1, a typical SME and the main node of the supply chain, provides aluminum and zinc alloys using pressure die casting equipment. Company 2, a typical SME is one of the nodes of the supply chain. A dedicated sub-contractor, producing injection moulding and pressure die casting parts and assemblies, for a large range of industrial customers. Company 3, an SME, node of the supply chain, performs electrostatic painting of different types of parts, such as: screws, locks, telephone devices, and aluminum panels, enamel paint on metallic objects, such as ovens, stoves, solar and electric heaters, aluminum painting, silk printing, surface treatments and assembly parts. The cooperation is triggered by an order received by the main contractor, which is company 1 as shown in Fig. 9. According to the specications of the product, company 1 dispatches the order to company 2, for producing the plastic parts, and to company 3, for performing post processing and assembly. At the same time, company 1 itself produces a number of parts of the nal assembly. The manufactured parts are collected by company 3, for the post processing; assembly and shipment to the customer to be performed. The manufacturing activities of each company are strongly dependent on the activities of the other companies. The manufacturing activity is hampered if the parts manufactured in one of the companies involved are not nished in time. Specically, the delay in the production of plastic parts in company 2 causes delays in the assembly process of company 3. Therefore, there is a need to trace the work progress of each company, so that the other companies can prepare the production, i.e., order the necessary materials and nish existing orders.
Fig. 9. Business process.
based projects together with the adoption of the XML standard for data exchange assures a high degree of interoperability and platform independency of the developed system. The data layer includes the database management system. The core of the database schema of the Spirit-P module, representing facility, workload and scheduling information, is as shown in Fig. 8. One company undertakes one or more projects, which consist of one or more job orders. Each job order is undertaken by one department of the company, for example, the Assembly Department undertakes the assembly job orders. Each department consists of one or more workcenters comprising a group of identical resources. Each workcenter performs one or more tasks that are then assigned to one of the workcenter resources. Resource-task assignments are represented in the form of alternative assignments. Similar structures are implemented for Spirit-M and Spirit-C respectively.
Fig. 10. Spirit-P, plan of one company.
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Fig. 11. Supply chain plan.
The three companies of the real world industrial case study are cooperating for the production of a sub-assembly, which includes painted metal parts, assembled with one or more plastic parts. A handle for a sluice valve is produced for a European manufacturer of large-scale hydraulic appliances. The handle, called Levier Bascule set 165, comprises of two aluminum casts, painted in two different colours with electrostatic painting techniques, one plastic part being the connecting element of the handle to the valve, two screws and one spring used for the assembly. The order given by the external customer concerns the whole assembled handle. Company 1 receives the order and releases suborders through the Spirit-C module for each one of the cooperating partners. The casting operations are performed by company 1, the order for plastic parts should be given to company 2, whilst the postprocessing and the assembly to company 3. The order data are transferred to the Spirit-P module that considers the facility and workload information and produces a plan according to the procedure described in Section 3. In Fig. 10 is presented an example of such a plan, using Spirit-P, for planning the production of company 3. This Gantt chart is implemented as a Java applet and is accessible through the Internet. Similarly, each company produces a production plan for the order received. The plan for each company is imported to Spirit-C via the corresponding XML interface. Spirit-C produces a combined plan for the production of the nal product as shown in Fig. 11. Each company generates updated planning information associated with monitoring information about the produced quantities for the ordered products. This information is imported to Spirit-C via the XML interfaces and is visualized as a black shade on the jobs bars as seen in Fig. 12 whilst it is accessible by other companies that can adjust their work accordingly. The pilot introduction of the suggested system into the daily cooperative work of the three SMEs, gave some promising results
Table 1 Performance indicators and their calculated values. Description of result Delivery performance average increase (number of orders year before vs. year after) Machinery loading rate increase (year before vs. year after) No. of parts in stock: Average for the 1st quarter of the year Average for the 2nd quarter of the year Average for the 3rd quarter of the year Value 15.5% 0.3% 60,050 58,200 47,814
Table 2 Calculated benets for the SMEs. Description Cost reduction on orders management through efcient communication Efcient inventory management through improved communication Improved resource utilisation through better management of the work allocation Increased productivity and prot through more efcient completion of orders Total benet Euro/year 45,000 25,000 35,000 30,000
135,000
based on a measurement plan, which is congured according to the business objectives of the specic pilot case. This measurement plan included the selection and application of a set of performance indicators and the measurement of their values before and after the introduction of the suggested system. Indicative results are presented in Table 1. Taking into account the improvements achieved after a year of the system application, an assessment of the nancial benets was made. The calculated benet values for the manufacturing network of the cooperating SMEs are presented in Table 2.
Fig. 12. Spirit-C, supply chain distributed production monitoring.
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8 D. Mourtzis / CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology xxx (2011) xxxxxx [2] Abele, E., Elzenheimer, J., Liebeck, T., Meyer, T., 2006, Recongurable Manufacturing Systems and Transformable Factories Globalization and Decentralization of Manufacturing, 1st edition. Springer. pp. 45. [3] Zhang, L., Carman, K., Lee, C., Xu, Q., 2010, Towards Product Customization: An Integrated Order Fulllment System, Computers in Industry, 61/3 (April): 213222. [4] Brauer, K., 2008, Decentralization in The European Automotive Industry: A Scenario-Based Evaluation, 16th GERPISA International Colloquium, . URL: http://gerpisa.org/rencontre/16.rencontre/GERPISAJune2008/Colloquium/ contributions.html#. [5] Mourtzis, D., Makris, S., Xanthakis, V., Chryssolouris, G., 2008, Supply Chain Modelling and Control for Producing Highly Customized Products, CIRP Annals Manufacturing Technology, 57/1: 451454. [6] Humphreys, P.K., Lai, M.K., Sculli, D., 2001, An Inter-Organizational Information System for Supply Chain Management, International Journal of Production Economics, 70:245255. [7] Choy, K.L., Lee, W.B., Lo, V., 2002, An Intelligent Supplier Management Tool for Benchmarking Suppliers in Outsource Manufacturing, Expert Systems with Applications, 22/3:213224. [8] Teruaki, I., Mohd, R.S., 2000, A Blackboard-Based Negotiation for Collaborative Supply Chain System, Journal of Materials Processing Technology, 107:398 403. [9] Shapiro, J.F., 2001, Modeling the Supply Chain, Thomson Learning Inc., Duxbury. [10] Bowon, K., 2000, Coordinating an Innovation in Supply Chain Management, European Journal of Operational Research, 123:568584. [11] Mezgar, I., Kovacs, G., Paganelli, P., 2000, Co-Operative Production Planning for Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises, International Journal of Production Economics, 64:3748. [12] Stefansson, G., 2002, Business-to-Business Data Sharing: A Source for Integration of Supply Chains, International Journal of Production Economics, 75: 135146. [13] Strader, T.J., Lin, F., Shaw, M., 1998, Information Infrastructure for Electronic Virtual Organisation Management, Decision Support Systems, 23:7594. [14] Wiendahl, H.P., Cieminski, G., Begemann, C., 2003, A Systematic Approach for Ensuring the Logistic Process Reliability of Supply Chains, Annals of the CIRP, 52/1:375378. [15] Bruccoleri, M., Lo, Nigro G., Federico, F., Noto La Diega, S., Perrone, G., 2003, Negotiation Mechanisms for Capacity Allocation in Distributed Enterprises, Annals of the CIRP, 52/1:397400. [16] Monostori, L., Vancza, J., Kumara, S.R.T., 2006, Agent-Based Systems for Manufacturing, Annals of the CIRP, 55/2: 697720. [17] Tolio, T., Urgo, M., 2007, A Rolling Horizon Approach to Plan Outsourcing in Manufacturing-to-Order Environments Affected by Uncertainty, CIRP Annals Manufacturing Technology, 56/1: 487490. [18] Monostori, L., Kadar, B., Pfeiffer, A., Karnok, D., 2007, Solution Approaches to Real-Time Control of Customized Mass Production, CIRP Annals Manufacturing Technology, 56/1: 431434. [19] Vancza, J., Egri, P., Monostori, L., 2008, A Coordination Mechanism for Rolling Horizon Planning in Supply Networks, CIRP Annals Manufacturing Technology, 57/1: 455458. [20] Cooper, J.W., 2000, Java Design Patterns: A Tutorial, Addison-Wesley Pub Co.. [21] Chryssolouris, G., Makris, S., Xanthakis, V., Mourtzis, D., 2004, Towards the Internet Based Supply Chain Management for Ship Repair Industry, International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing, 17:4557. [22] Makris, S., Xanthakis, V., Mourtzis, D., Chryssolouris, G., 2008, On the Information Modelling for the Electronic Operation of Supply Chains: A Maritime Case Study, Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, 24/1:140149. [23] Mourtzis, D., 2006, An Approach to Planning of Food Industry Manufacturing Operations: A Case Study, CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Systems, 35/6: 551561. [24] Chryssolouris, G., Lee, M., 1994, An Approach to Real-Time Flexible Scheduling, International Journal of Flexible Manufacturing Systems, 6:235253. [25] Chryssolouris, G., 2006, Manufacturing Systems Theory and Practice, 2nd edition. Springer-Verlag, Inc., New York. [26] Chryssolouris, G., Makris, S., Xanthakis, V., Konstantinis, V., 2003, An XML Based Implementation of the Value Added Chain in Manufacturing: A Ship Repair Case Study, CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Systems, 32:6. [27] Brown, S., Burdick, R., Falkner, J., Galbraith, B., 2001, Professional JSP, 2nd edition. Wrox Press Inc.. [28] Brown, S., Dalton, S., Jepp, D., Johnson, D., 2005, Pro JSP2, 4th edition. Apress. [29] Thirumalai, S., Sinha, K., 2011, Customization of the Online Purchase Process in Electronic Retailing and Customer Satisfaction: An Online Field Study, Journal of Operations Management, 29/5 (July): 477487. [30] Helms, M., Ahmadi, M., Jih, W., Ettkin, L., 2008, Technologies in Support of Mass Customization Strategy: Exploring the Linkages Between E-Commerce and Knowledge Management, Computers in Industry, 59/4 (April): 351363.
5. Conclusions and outlook The discussed approach combines a exible 4-level hierarchical scheduling approach and a collaboration framework in the form of a web based software package. Critical business functions, such as planning, scheduling and monitoring of work in the supply chain, are enabled by this approach. The use of XML standardizes the exchange of data due to its openness that facilitates access to the information. Additionally, the use of the web for communicating proves to be a reliable and efcient approach that minimizes time delays compared with paper based approaches. Web based collaboration ensures that delays, due to the bureaucracy caused by paper based data exchange be minimized. Customers and suppliers of the cooperating partners can directly be linked with the virtual organization and can gain benets such as consistency in their delivery dates, quick response to variations concerning their orders, ability to trace the progress of their orders, faster and more accurate quotations provided by the virtual organization, as well as accurate estimations for supply planning and inventory keeping on the products and parts, supplied by the virtual organization. The nal conclusion is that web based approaches that are adapted to real life business rules, help avoid changes in the way daily business is performed but also utilize the benets of the instant information exchange which information technologies can offer thus, minimizing business process required reengineering. Consumers around the globe expressed the need for unique products that combine quality, with short life-cycles, that also are available at low prices, at the right time [29]. Online customization will become available at the near future, for every customer and truly unique products will be requested every moment by users around the globe. However, the increase in manufacturing complexity, the dynamic production environment, the escalating cost and environmental legislations/regulations are some of the issues that emerge in a mass customization environment [3]. At present, most researches are concerned with the strategic impact of mass customization and do not address to specic implementation issues [30]. Therefore, our future research will be focused on the investigation and development of methods and tools that aim to bridge the gap between mass production and mass customization, engaging the customer in the initial design of the products and realizing the manufacturing of these personalized added-value products in a novel, coordinated, and efcient decentralized approach. Further to that will be utilized multiple cost efciency criteria in order for the most efcient decentralized manufacturing schemes to be determined. Acknowledgment The work discussed in this paper was partially funded by the CEC: project SMART-SME (IST-20744).
References
[1] Feldmann, K., Rottbauer, H., Roth, N., 1996, Relevance of Assembly in Global Manufacturing, CIRP Annals, 45/2: 545552.
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CIRPJ-161; No. of Pages 9

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology