Manufacturing automation has progressed through various stages from simple data transfer to the intelligence-intensive systems. The future of CIM relies heavily on intelligence-intensive systems because manufacturing is no longer confined to one local site and manufacturing systems have become complex because of their global nature. In this article, the authors study the future manufacturing environment as a collaborative effort. The essential characteristics-the requirements for integration from a process and communication perspective-are identified as are steps in the process requiring further study. Finally, Intelligent-Computer Integrated Manufacturing (I-CIM) scenarios are presented for specific problems.
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