Implementation of computer-integrated manufacturing: A survey of integration and adaptability issues

Abstract

Computer-integrated manufacturing CIM as a strategy helps to improve the performance of a manufacturing firm by integrating various financial areas of manufacturing, both in terms of material and information flow. There are many reports that deal with the technological and operational aspects of CIM, but the issues of integration and adaptability as key objectives in the design and implementation of CIM are not paid due attention. Realizing the importance of CIM, an attempt has been made in this paper to review the literature available on the implementation of CIM with an objective to gain more insights into the integration and adaptability issues. This paper focuses on improving integration and adaptability as design and implementation objectives of computer-integrated manufacturing systems. A conceptual model has been developed to illustrate the key issues of integration and adaptability of CIM. The model has been explained by surveyed observations. In addition, a new framework has been proposed in this paper for the design and implementation of CIM and some future research directions are suggested.