A RULE-BASED MANUFACTURING MODELING SYSTEM

The paper is aimed at presenting the overall architecture and main fea tures of the software package resulting from the Esprit III project 82 2-RUMS (a Rule-based Manufacturing Modelling System). Its ultimate obj ective was to provide small-medium enterprises (SMEs) with advanced so ftware modules supporting long-term (strategic) planning, medium-term (materials and resources) planning, short-term (shop-floor) planning, and the underlying models of product and process. Interfaces between t he RUMS modules and popular commercial MRP packages have been studied, to interact with purchasing and inventory management modules. To suit the typical SME manufacturing organisation, production planning softw are must take into account requirements and constraints that are gener ally not found in larger enterprises. Moreover, SMEs have difficulties in adopting the expensive and burdensome set of solutions that are pr esently needed to cover all the planning functions. A strong and conti nuous interaction with real cases at different SMEs has been carried o ut, both for validating the model and for measuring its impact on the enterprise organisation.