The Language of Collaborative Manufacturing

Today's machines and products are so advanced in terms of their materials, form, construction, control and drive systems that they require expertise and resource that extends beyond the reach of even the world's largest organisations. As a consequence, the design, development and manufacture of, for example, a modern aircraft is undertaken by a large globally distributed network of organisations. While defining this network poses a design problem by itself, it is the challenge of managing such large, highly distributed, high value projects that is of utmost concern to industry presently. This is not only because of the recent spate of high profile cost overruns, delivery setbacks and collapsed projects, but also because of aspects of leakage of intellectual property, exposure to risk, and difficulties capturing design records, lessons learned, decisions and rationale.