Next Generation Manufacturing Environment

Over the past few decades, manufacturing factories have undertaken massive improvements. Early attempts at introducing information technology in manufacturing factories were mainly based on improvements of processes and systems with the purpose of enhancing productivity, quality, and cost reduction. A survey was carried out at a manufacturing company for a purpose of establishing direction of development for technology and services through deduction of current problems and required improvements. As a result, a total of 173 problems were deduced and fundamental causes of the problems were revealed. Ubiquitous factory is a concept of future manufacturing factory in which human’s endeavors and technologies are harmoniously interwoven. In this paper, we proposed three element of ubiquitous factory concept; intelligent support, instinctive interaction and ability-sharing.