Digital enterprise technology in production networks

Enterprises organised as distributed production networks face challenges related to the planning and synchronisation of their manufacturing operations, and of controlling the quality, cost and production time of products under development. Digital enterprise technology (DET) is a framework for new technologies which can shorten product development and realisation, by estimating and therefore controlling quality, cost and delivery factors for products at an early stage in their lifecycle. DET can also be deployed to facilitate planning and synchronisation of work across an extended enterprise. Particularly for high value and high complexity products, these techniques represent an emergent synthesis of strategies for design, manufacture and product lifecycle management.