INTEGRATION INFRASTRUCTURE REQUIREMENTS FOR AGILE MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS

Current approaches to the design and construction of enterprise system s lead to fixed inter-dependences between valuable resources. This con strains resource reuse and the agility of systems, often preventing cl ose alignment between system behaviour and business process requiremen ts. This paper describes the important role that software-based integr ation infrastructures and integration structures can play respectively in supporting and organizing system behaviour in a way that facilitat es system extension and change. Also described are different types of reusable software component and their infrastructural needs. These com ponents are likely to become common building blocks of next-generation agile manufacturing systems. The paper illustrates the concepts descr ibed by reporting on research in the MSI Research Institute which is p roducing proof-of-concept agile manufacturing systems in collaboration with UK end user and vendor companies.