Computer-Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) offe rs a number of use ful and potential opportunities for improving the competitiveness of manufacturing. | INT. J. COMPUTER INTEGRATED MANUFACTURING 2001 VOL. 14 NO. 2 137-139 Guest Editorial Next generation computer-integrated manufacturing strategies and techniques A. GUNASEKARAN Computer-Integrated Manufacturing CIM offers a number of useful and potential opportunities for improving the competitiveness of manufacturing. The motivation for CIM has been based on the perceived need for manufacturing industry to respond to changes more rapidly than in the past. CIM has potential applications in manufacturing strategies such as agile lean and virtual enterprises. Hence there is a need to inve stigate the are as of further development applications and implications of CIM in the next generation of manufacturing organizations. It is axiomatic that co mp ute rs computer applications and integrated such as enterprise and value chain wide computer systems will be applied in next generation manufacturing companies. The key problem that remains to be resolved is to define where we will apply these systems howwe will apply these systems how these systems will be created and how the division of tasks between the people system and the CIM system is decided. The papers that appear in this sp e cial issu e deal with str ate gic frameworks conceptual and analytical models and case stu dies focusing on new archite cture s change s in the organization technology and people required for the design and implementation of CIM in order to enable companies to compete on flexibility and responsiveness. The contributed papers deal with but are not limited to the following. Strategic and organizational adaptation of Computer-Integrated Manufacturing Systems CIMS for 21st century manufacturing competitiveness. Design methodologies for CIM systems including architectures and evaluation of adaptability for Author A. Gunasekaran Department of Management University of Massachusetts North Dartmouth MA 02747-2300 USA. e-mail agunasekaran@ lean and ag ile manufacturing and valu e chain .
