ABSTRACT
For the past decade, the impact of web-based technologies has added “velocity” to the design, manufacturing, and aftermarket service of a product. Today’s competition in manufacturing industry depends not just on lean manufacturing but also on the ability to provide customers with total solutions and lifecycle costs for sustainable value. Manufacturers are now under tremendous pressure to improve their responsiveness and efficiency in terms of product development, operations, and resource utilization with a transparent visibility of production and quality control. Lead times must be cut short to their extreme extent to meet the changing demands of customers in different regions of the world. Products are required to be made-to-order with no or minimum inventory, requiring (a) an efficient information flow between customers, manufacturing, and product development (i.e., plant floor, suppliers, and designers); (b) a tight control between customers and manufacturing; and (c) near-zero downtime of the plant floor assets. Figure 2.1 summarizes the trends in manufacturing and function of predictive intelligence as an enabling tool to meet the needs [1-4].
