Real-Time Collaborative Information Management in Enterprises

The European manufacturing sector has experienced considerable changes in the last several decades because of the reduction of the manufacturing depth. Continuous pressure on prices and global competition forced companies to concentrate on core competences, thus outsourcing most of their production activities. However, information management becomes the main important challenge for these enterprises to ensure efficient communication and material and information flows synchronization with their partners, because different categories of information are considered with a high-exchange frequency. This chapter addresses the main industrial requirements for real-time information management within the Digital Factory, identifies the corresponding shop floor information and data required, and proposes the adequate methods to automatically capture the data and display them for shop floor actors.