Working with U.S. industry, NIST's Manufacturing Systems Integration Division (MSID) has conducted successful research and development of data integration standards for manufacturing systems, enabling computers to more easily share data among various software applications. This is only part of the vision of integrated manufacturing enterprises of the next century. The effective use by people, computers, and equipment of information generated by these integrated systems requires an understanding of the collaboration processes and interactions and the appropriate use of collaboration technologies. There are potentially large gains to be realized by manufacturers and researchers through the use of information technology tools to facilitate collaboration, better enabling manufacturing systems integration. Many companies, across all domains, are recognizing the advantages of collaboration technologies. According to Mark Levitt, research manager at International Data Corp., in Framingham, MA., the total number of users of networked or Web-based integrated collaboration environments (ICEs) more than doubled in 1997, topping 50 million corporate users by the end of that year. (PC Week, March 30, 1998, v15 n13 p31(2)) While collaborative technologies promise dramatic impact, they can easily be misapplied. For example, expensive videoconferencing implementations have proven effective for negotiations, yet are awkward for project teams, where asynchronous and synchronous text-based tools are most effective.

We are investigating how best to apply collaborative technologies to the manufacturing domain to realize these gains (understanding that it is as difficult to quantify the benefits of collaboration tools as it would have been many years ago to predict the impact of the telephone on business communications). Furthermore, we will assess the impact of these tools on manufacturing processes, and armed with this knowledge, identify future standards requirements to enable effective use of information technology by U.S. industry.

This project is part of the Enterprise Engineering Program and funded by the Systems Integration for Manufacturing Applications (SIMA) program.

This project will work with industry and researchers to understand the requirements for collaboration and will identify, develop when required, deploy, and assess collaboration technologies and services. Furthermore, the deployment and use of collaboration technologies to support manufacturing systems integration will certainly change, and likely improve, the way manufacturers conduct their businesses. This project will assess and document these changes and will identify areas for emerging manufacturing systems integration standards.

• University of Michigan
• University of Saskatchewan
• University of Calgary
• NIST Information Technology Laboratory
• NIST Advanced Manufacturing Testbed (NAMT)
• Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program
• NAMT Robotic Arc Welding project
  

Michelle Steves, Amy Knutilla, and Elizabeth Wierba, "A Manufacturing Collaboratory Case Study - Companion Document," NISTIR 6809, National Institution of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, 2001. [abstract, executive summary, full (pdf)]

Elizabeth Wierba and Thomas Finholt, "A Manufacturing Collaboratory Case Study," Natl. Inst. Stand. Technol. GCR 01-811; 2001 May. [pdf]

Elizabeth Wierba, Thomas Finholt, and Michelle Steves, "Challenges to Collaborative Tool Adoption in a Manufacturing Engineering Setting: A Case Study," To appear in the Proceeding of HICSS-35, January 7-10, 2002, Big Island, Hawaii, IEEE Press. [abstract, pdf]

Michelle Steves, Emile Morse, Carl Gutwin, and Saul Greenberg, "A Comparison of Usage Evaluation and Inspection Methods for Assessing Groupware Usability," GROUP'01, Boulder, CO, September, 2001. ACM Press, pp. 125-134. [abstract, pdf]