Virtual Manufacturing Systems as Advanced Information Infrastructure for Integrating Manufacturing Resources and Activities

Abstract Advanced information technology such as computer networking and 3D graphics is now forcing industrial companies to change their manufacturing systems to information-oriented ones. The authors propose an new approach to an advanced information infrastructure with manufacturing semantics by using virtual manufacturing systems. Virtual manufacturing systems have much potential to integrate manufacturing resources and activities distributed in computer networks. The paper also describes how virtual manufacturing systems will be applied to applications as the informational kernel with open architecture in advanced manufacturing systems.