THE INTELLIGENT PRODUCT IN MANUFACTURING CONTROL

The authors are involved in an industrially-funded research project which is establishing connections between manufactured components or products and the internet using automated identification - or Auto ID - technologies. This will enable accurate, timely information about a specific item to be stored, retrieved, communicated and even used in automated decision making or control functions relevant to that item. In this way we begin to build a specification for an intelligent product - one whose information content is permanently bound to its material content, and which can influence decisions made concerning its destiny. This paper specifically explores the impact of such developments on manufacturing shop floor control and management and in particular examines the way in which distributed, intelligent manufacturing control methods can be enhanced by the availability of accurate, timely, item-level information.