COMPARISON OF THE BIONIC, FRACTAL AND HOLONIC MANUFACTURING SYSTEM CONCEPTS

Over the next decade production will experience an enormous increase i n variety and great reduction in batch sizes. Customers will have more individualistic desires and will participate in the design and produc tion, and will be involved in details of services via electronic means . To meet these demands current organizations will be replaced by more innovative organic structures. One promising structure is a conglomer ate of distributed and autonomous units which operate as a set of coop erating entities. In this respect, many new concepts are being propose d: bionic, fractal and holonic manufacturing. In this paper the underl ying principles on which these concepts are based are described and th eir design and operational features compared. Also, a more concrete ex ample of shop-floor application as envisaged by these concepts is prov ided.