Title: Generating a task-driven extended enterprise for e-manufacturing

Authors: Guanghui Zhou, Pingyu Jiang, Dinghong Zhang

Addresses: State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710049, China. ' State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710049, China. ' CAD/CAM Institute, School of Mechanical Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710049, China

Abstract: Currently, e-manufacturing is considered as a new advanced philosophy in manufacturing areas. In order to win the competition in the 21st century global market extended enterprise presented based on e-manufacturing strategy is playing an important role in manufacturing enterprises. As such, this paper mainly concerns on the generation of extended enterprise and the key points include four parts. First point, it introduces the basic concepts of the e-manufacturing and extended enterprise. Second, it presents and develops three kinds of task-allocating strategies and models that are connected with direct assignment, acquaintance and stranger to implement the generation of extended enterprise concerning the specific manufacturing tasks where Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is adopted as an algorithm to carry out the optimal evaluation and decision. Third, it adopts Java web solutions and mobile agent technologies to realise the above-mentioned task-allocating models and prototype. And finally, it presents a case study to demonstrate above ideas.

Keywords: e-manufacturing; extended enterprise; task allocation; manufacturing strategy; modelling; mobile agents; analytical hierarchy process; AHP; Java; task-allocating models; product development; manufacturing tasks; internet.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIEM.2005.008412

International Journal of Internet and Enterprise Management, 2005 Vol.3 No.3, pp.264 - 279

Published online: 19 Dec 2005 *

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