Smart manufacturing, manufacturing intelligence and demand-dynamic performance

Smart Manufacturing is the dramatically intensified and pervasive application of networked information-based technologies throughout the manufacturing and supply chain enterprise. The defining technical threads are time, synchronization, integrated performance metrics and cyber-physical-workforce requirements. Smart Manufacturing responds and leads to a dramatic and fundamental business transformation to demand-dynamic economics keyed on customers, partners and the public; enterprise performance and variability management; real-time integrated computational materials engineering and rapid qualification, demand-driven supply chain services; and broad-based workforce involvement. IT-enabled Smart factories and supply networks can better respond to national interests and strategic imperatives and can revitalize the industrial sector by facilitating global competitiveness and exports, providing sustainable jobs, radically improving performance, and facilitating manufacturing innovation. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.