Towards Adaptive Manufacturing Systems - Knowledge and Knowledge Management Systems

Today the changes in the environment, be those business related or manufacturing, are both frequent and rapid. Industry has talked about the adaptation to meet the changes over a decade. Adaptation as a word has gained quite a reputation. Adaptation is expected in design of products and processes and in the realization of processes. The adaptation in the field of manufacturing sector is commonly understood as operational flexibility and reaction speed to the changes and/or opportunities. However, in order to achieve the required level of adaptability a company must be able to learn. Learning is achieved through gaining and understanding feedback of a change: its quantity and direction. Gaining and understanding the feedback a company must be able to compare the past status to the new status of actions. Unfortunately, the knowledge of neither the past nor the present is in computer interpretable and comparable form. Thus, the achieved and/or imagined flexibility is slightly above non-existent in reality.