Real-time, Cooperative Enterprises

In addition of the four main R&D directions, i.e., adaptive manufacturing, digital manufacturing, knowledge-based manufacturing, and networked manufacturing, emphasised by the European initiative Manufuture, two additional requirements, i.e., the real-timeness and cooperativeness of production structures are also outlined in the paper, which are of high and increasing importance. The paper highlights the main results of a national R&D project in Hungary on Digital Enterprises, Production Networks, and the main concept of a new, just started, national research project VITAL: Real-time Cooperative Enterprises.