ENTERPRISE MODELING FOR CIM INFORMATION-SYSTEMS ARCHITECTURES - AN OBJECT-ORIENTED APPROACH

Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) information systems have becom e extremely important to the global competitiveness of most manufactur ing firms. And although much has been written about CIM development an d implementation many problems still plague practitioners. For example , lack of integration, islands of automation, sub-optimization of reso urces, and the inability to migrate to future technology are a few typ es of problems. Further, few methodologies have been developed that sy stematically address these issues, In this paper, we outline an Object -Oriented approach to modeling manufacturing enterprises. The approach offers a procedure and techniques for defining CIM information system s architectures which could serve as blueprints for CIM development an d implementation in manufacturing enterprises.