Factory environment and CIM

Abstract This contribution on the topic of factory environment and CIM is divided into two parts. The first part deals with some fundamental aspects of intelligent manufacturing systems for the new generation factories. This subject is divided into three blocks: intelligent manufacturing systems, expert systems and intelligent CAE/CAD/CAM. Based on the input-output approach, some basic requirements for IMS definition are given. The second part deals with the problem of the factory environment and CIM, more specifically from historical aspects to the contemporary factory and some conceptual designs aspects of FMS. At the end, an example of structural pattern recognition of FMS is given.