Integration of flexible manufacturing and change management processes in a service-oriented architecture

Abstract

The success of a company invariably depends more and more on the ability of a company to recognize changes in its environment at an early stage and consider these changes timely in its competitive behavior. Flexibility, as one of the major factors, marks the ability of a company to master complex environmental situations in order to boost its chances to survive and safeguard its longterm success. This article reflects on the perspectives offered by the utilization of the service oriented paradigm for realizing the integration of a flexibility evaluation platform used for 'near real-time' flexibility measurement and monitoring of a manufacturing system, within the scope of a change management platform. © 2007 Springer.