The underlying requirements of CIM systems implementation

Integrated manufacturing systems incorporate an extreme diversity of technologies, methods, products and so forth. It is not practical to start from scratch when considering solutions in this area, due to the large number of installed manufacturing systems, current vendor products, research directions etc. Areas of activity which will eventually contribute to successful CIM systems are listed. Two particular problems are considered: such total standards cannot be evolved without experience from real systems, but the systems cannot be built without the specifications and standards; and the system cannot be built without the interlocking building blocks (i.e. the vendor products), but the building blocks will not be developed or supplied until there is demand for them. An iterative approach to the problems is proposed, and the development of the Fieldbus standard is described as an example