Time critical communications in open systems

The essential thread which is present in computer integrated manufacture (CIM) is communications because a network of interconnected machines depends critically on a reliable and well characterised communication system. The identification and quantification of such a communications system is not simple and is set to become more complex in the future and with increased scale of operations. To compound the problem the subject matter is very new and described in a recent and unstable terminology. It is thus unlikely that a typical mix of small/medium enterprises (SMEs) will ever have an in-house mastery of these subjects. The situation for large enterprises is only different as a consequence of scale