AbsThis paper is dedicated to describing the efforts of the Small Integrated Manufacturing Enterprise (SIME) program at The University of Texas at Arlington. The research objective of the program is the development of a set of integration requirements for the generalized small CIE of the future. These requirements will be established using a reference model of "the successful small CIE of the f...

The manufacturing sector has been facing major challenges as it undergoes revolutionary changes fuelled by new and sophisticated demands from customers, global competition, distribution of manufacturing and marketing activities, and technological advances. In order to address these challenges, manufacturing enterprises need to change the way they do business and adopt innovative organizational ...

In conjunction with America Makes, the nation’s leading and collaborative partner in additive manufacturing (AM) and 3D printing technology and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Penn State’s Center for Innovative Materials Processing through Direct Digital Deposition is sending an open invitation to Small to Medium Enterp...

Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in many economies. In New Zealand, for example, 97% of all manufacturing companies employ less than 100 staff, and generate the predominant part of this industry sector’s economic output. Manufacturing SMEs as a group also have a significant impact on the environment. This situation is similar in many developed economies, includin...

The globalization of markets and world-wide competition forces manufacturing enterprises to enter into alliances leading to the creation of distributed manufacturing enterprises. Before forming a partnership it is essential to evaluate viability of proposed enterprise as well as how a company’s operations are affected by the proposed virtual enterprise. Distributed simulation provides an attrac...

This paper investigates into the determinants of capital structure for the small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in British manufacturing industry and the effects of product category on the determinants of capital structure. 220 SMEs from British manufacturing industry are selected for testing the six hypothesized relationships regarding the determinants of capital structure. Results sugges...