ABSTRACT
The Industrial Revolution spawned organized manufacturing activity, in the form of small manufacturing companies. The manufacturing enterprise of the future will be a virtual enterprise comprising an integrated global holonic system of autonomous units, both large and small, located in various places throughout the world. The operation of the product realization process in such global manufacturing enterprises will be based on integration of the engineering of the technology required to carry out that process with the engineering of the utilization of the human resources required to carry out that same process, to enable both the technology and the human resources to perform at their full joint potential. In the 1950s, there occurred a technological event having major potential to change that situation, namely, the invention of the digital computer. This was indeed a watershed event for manufacturing, though not recognized as such at the time.
