Agile Manufacturing in Complex Supply Networks

Abstract

Today’s manufacturing industries are characterised by complex distributed supply networks, which require agile manufacturing strategy to compete as a whole in the volatile global market. Key to an agile supply chain is fast material, information and decision flows across the supply network, which can be achieved through the close integration and coordination of both internal and external supply chains of a firm in the network. This chapter presents the important aspects of an IST project: Co-OPERATE, which aims to develop a Web-based system for improved coordination of manufacturing planning and control activities across the supply network. These include review of the currently available commercial solutions for supply network coordination (SNC), analysis of the challenges and the business and systems requirements of SNC in complex supply networks (e.g. in the automotive industry), a framework for SNC, design of the overall Co-OPERATE system, and implementation and evaluation of the system. The key contributions of the presented work include a research framework for SNC, a decentralised system architecture for SNC, the high-level design of four focused coordination processes, and the implementation of the Co-OPERATE system.