NATIONAL MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY, APRIL 21 & 22, 1998 NATIONAL MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE: Electronic Commerce for Next Generation Manufacturing Systems National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland April 21 & 22, 1998 This conference will showcase technical achievements of selected government, university, and industry research projects supporting the implementation of Next Generation Manufacturing Systems. Electronic Commerce Applications will be emphasized. The two-day program will feature technology demonstrations illustrating future manufacturing and business capabilities enabled by information technology. Accompanying presentations will describe research results and future goals, explore the application requirements of prospective manufacturing users, and discuss standards and measurement-related issues. Invited keynote speakers will provide government, industry, and university perspectives on challenges and opportunities likely to confront U.S. manufacturers as they compete in global economy of a new century. The program will be divided into four tracks, which are described below. Live, on-line technical demonstrations performed at remotely located laboratories at NIST, other government agencies, and industry sites will feature some of the advanced capabilities and performance improvements afforded by the computing, communications, and networking technologies of today and tomorrow. These demonstration will provide conference participants with an excellent opportunity to survey the progress and review the directions of selected research projects undertaken by government agencies and industrial consortia to push the information technology envelope and pave the way for next-generation manufacturing applications. In addition, participants will learn about new technology-development efforts and research programs initiated by federal agencies and laboratories. Track 1: Electronic Commerce for Manufacturing Applications Electronic Commerce has the potential to revolutionize trade and commerce, introduce new styles of customer and supplier relationships, and stimulate the creation of whole new industries. The rapid growth of the Internet has spawned tremendous opportunities, but the technical infrastructure necessary for electronic commerce is not stable. Lack of open standards in key domains undermines electronic commerce transactions and impedes the emergence of innovative applications. Concerns about privacy and security are additional deterrents, as are the costs and risks associated with migrating information resources to newer technology. Many of the essential building blocks of electronic commerce are in place. Yet, there are gaps in the underlying technical infrastructure necessary for the seamless connectivity, near-perfect reliability, and other high-performance attributes required to support business-critical services and applications. Open standards are a critical element of the long-term solution. This track will examine the gaps and highlight the open standards necessary to support electronic commerce for manufacturing applications. Track Chair: Neil Christopher, NIST; Co-chair: Mary Mitchell, NIST. Track 2: Advanced Manufacturing Processes This track will highlight research advances and emerging standards essential to the implementation of advanced processes in manufacturing and construction industries. Topics of demonstrations and presentations will include: Testing, remote operation, and simulation of next-generation hexapod machine tools. Emerging tools and methods for simulating construction operations and for automating and electronically communicating job-site measurements. Development of standard mechanical tests, capabilities for accurate simulation of material responses in forming processes, and on-line techniques for remote data acquisition and control of metal forming operations. Track Chair: Albert Wavering, NIST; Co-chair: Ram Sriram, NIST Track 3: Distributed and Virtual Manufacturing Applications The application of information technology to manufacturing systems has recentlygiven rise to new, powerful operational and technical capabilities. It is now possible to develop products and processes quickly and economically by using modeling and simulation technologies to accomplish tasks that, until recently, could only be performed physically. Also, manufacturing organizations can now leverage pools of resources that reside at multiple facilities in geographically dispersed locations. These new distributed and virtual manufacturing capabilities have created exciting opportunities for creating even more efficient and even more tightly integrated extended enterprises. With tools and systems made available through integrated computing and networking technologies, researchers and engineers will have access to manufacturing resources wherever they are located. In such distributed work environments, operations can be performed collaboratively, regardless of geographic location. Remotely located collaborators will be able to access equipment and instrumentation at geographically separated sites, share data and computational resources, and secure information from widely distributed digital libraries. This track focuses on standards and measurement issues and other barriers that stand in the way of robust distributed and virtual manufacturing capabilities. Track Chair: Charles McLean, NIST; Co-chair: David Stieren, NIST Track 4: NGM Roadmapping Update and Research Programs This track will highlight the status of the one-year manufacturing-technology roadmapping effort supported by the Department of Energy, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, NIST, and the National Science Foundation. The aim is to develop "Integrated Manufacturing Technology Roadmaps" (IMTR) that will help guide the agencies' research investments so that they are responsive to industry needs. A priority-setting refinement of the Next Generation Manufacturing project completed in 1997, the IMTR initiative is defining long-term technology needs in four high-impact areas: information systems, modeling and simulation, processes and equipment, and enterprise integration. Through industry surveys and other methods, the aim is to anticipate the tools and capabilities that will be essential to superior manufacturing performance and capabilities over the next 5 to 15 years. The IMTR project is producing four integrated roadmaps that provide a shared perspective for investing in long-term technology development. The roadmaps will identify major technology needs and challenges cutting across industrial sectors. This track will also include presentations on government-funded and co-funded research programs that are new or planned in areas relevant to the themes of the technical tracks. Track Chair: Mark Luce, NIST FOR AGENDA AND REGISTRATION INFORMATION VISIT THE NIST HOME PAGE AT: HTTP://WWW.MEL.NIST.GOV/DOCS/MFGCONF/MFGCON.HTM. WEB: NIST Manufacturing Conference Information Home Page, http://www.mel.nist.gov/docs/mfgconf/mfgcon.htm.

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0570 19980409\SP-0003.MSC)