Institute for Prospective Technological Studies

Foreword In mid 1997, the European Industrial Advisory Group overseeing European participation in the IMS initiative (i.e. an international R&D collaborative scheme on Intelligent Manufacturing Systems), requested a synthetic overview of the competitive and technological Strengths and Weaknesses of manufacturing industry in Europe, as well as the emerging Opportunities and Threats it faces, with a view to working out a more focused European IMS strategy. This report has been produced by IPTS in response to that request. Firstly, the S.W.O.T. overview component of this study, represents syntheses produced on the basis of available literature and two expert consultation workshops. Linked to and building on this, the report also scans and discusses several options for a European strategy vis-à-vis the participation of European firms in IMS. This discussion interprets 'strategy' mainly from the point of view of preferred thematic focus and preferred target participant typologies, although, at the end of the report, an attempt is made to position these two dimensions in a frame relative to other dimensions of the broader 'strategy space'. On the whole, it became apparent in doing this literature based survey, that the challenge of producing a coherent EU wide SWOT picture was fraught with several difficulties. Firstly, on the basis of the standard economic indicators and statistics, the overview picture which it was possible to draw up, remained at too aggregate a level to permit a straightforward identification of clearly differentiated and justifiable options for a strategy. In the 'technological' domain, frustration was encountered at a lack of information available reflecting capabilities and prospects in the domain of 'soft' technologies, wherein lies the main thrust of the IMS overall technical frame. On the positive side, the overview did point to two (at present, rather fragmented) bodies of literature which contain the type of information which was required for the purpose of the SWOT overview, including multi-country/ multi-sectorial benchmarking of plant practice and performance, and national technology foresight reports. Unfortunately, no coherent body of literature on any of these counts exists at EU level, but some very useful insights and information were extracted from what was available. An important message deriving from this is the need for action at some appropriate level to compensate for this large information gap. The strategy options discussion, consists of the description of several themes each of which constitutes a basis for a set of focusing criteria. The arguments are developed in …