Integrating systems concepts into manufacturing information systems

In this paper, the emerging trends in the manufacturing industry have been identified and explained for the first time, using the systems concept. The theme of the trends is moving from parts to wholes: from functional area optimization to manufacturing capability building, from sequential production to parallel production, and from economies of scale to economies of scope. All these changes have showed that manufacturing managers are more interested in considering manufacturing tasks as the responsibility of an entire organization rather than as the functional responsibility of a firm. An integrated information systems approach based on the general systems concept has been suggested to meet the challenge derived from the new trends. The integrated manufacturing information systems focuses on orchestrating objectives, actions and tasks of an entire organization to build up competitive manufacturing capabilities, achieve manufacturing excellence, and sustain a reasonable level of growth. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.