ABSTRACT
As technology and process trends accelerate the introduction of new technologies into the e-factory, decision-making about which software and hardware suppliers to use becomes more complex. Over the last half of the last decade there was a raging debate associated with information technology strategies as to whether a company should use a single software provider for all its business application and control needs, or whether there should be a “bestof-breed” approach. The rapidly growing enterprise resource planning (ERP) companies such as SAP and Oracle were of course advocating the single supplier enterprise approach. However, the reality was that the enterprise systems were hardly up to performing all the functions in a company, especially not for the e-Factory. As a result, using a best-of-breed solution set is often the best approach to the e-factory. Thus, the “solution set” for an e-factory will likely consist of multiple suppliers.
