An extended manufacturing management model: control principles and aspects in production networks

Integrating the flow of materials and information is a challenge, independent whether it is inside a company or between companies in the value chain. The paper refers to different surveys that seeks to explain the growth of production networks. It also propose several definitinions and descriptions of networks. Control, information, and organisational aspects, economical issues, as well as geographical aspects are discussed. The paper describes a method for designing a Manufacturing Management Model. The paper also describes the structure and content of an Extended Manufacturing Model, based on the thinking behind the Extended Enterprise, which is now applied in several research projects in Norway. Finally the paper discusses the challenges of controlling the resources, the information flow and the material flow in production networks. This will reflect the findings from current research going on at our laboratories as well as some case studies.