Distributed Manufacturing

Abstract

Two different interpretations of the term distributed manufacturing (DM) exist. The first one refers to the concept of creating value at geographically dispersed manufacturing locations of one enterprise (Kühnle 2010). The second interpretation of DM is in the context of distributed manufacturing systems (DMS), which are defined as a class of manufacturing systems, focused on the internal manufacturing control and characterized by common properties (e.g., autonomy, flexibility, adaptability, agility, decentralization) (Sousa et al. 2000); examples for such DMS organizational structures are holonic (Valckenaers et al. 1994), bionic (Ueda 1993), and fractal (Warnecke 1993) manufacturing systems.