E-manufacturing: The keystone of a plant-wide real time information system

The Internet and advanced network computing technologies have made real-time and integrated business logic transactions a reality. As a result, the adoptions of e-business in enterprises are accelerating across all the business sectors around the world. For a manufacturer a plant-wide real-time information system is fundamental to its e-business execution, where an e-Manufacturing System (EMS) on the plant floor plays a key role. This paper presents an approach to the implementation of an EMS. First, by incorporating the concept of Virtual Production Lines (VPL)into an EMS, the computations of the EMS can be distributed across networks, resulting in a satisfactory performance. Secondly, a generic equipment operation model and generic operations are introduced from an EMS perspective, which not only make system integration easier but also guarantee the real-time entries of system data for all the activities occurred on the plant floor. EMS real-time responses enhance the office planning system and thus would promote the e-business deployment for a manufacturer.