ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE OPPORTUNITY TO PARTICIPATE IN A NEW PROJECT OF THE INTERNATIONAL INTELLIGENT MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS (IMS) SPECIAL NOTICES OFFADD: National Institute of Standards and Technology, Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory, Bldg. 220, Rm. A127, Gaithersburg, MD 20899 SUBJECT: NOTICE OF THE OPPORTUNITY TO PARTICIPATE IN A NEW PROJECT OF THE INTERNATIONAL INTELLIGENT MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS (IMS) PROGRAM: MODELING AND SIMULATION ENVIRONMENTS FOR DESIGN, PLANNING, AND OPERATION OF GLOBALLY DISTRIBUTED ENTERPRISES (MISSION) NIST announces that its Manufacturing Systems Engineering Group is the point of contact for U.S. organizations interested in participating in the recently approved MISSION Project of the IMS Program. Charles McLean, MSE group leader, will serve as coordinator for the U.S. region. A meeting to launch the new project will be held in Berlin, Germany on July 7-11, 1998. The overall goal of the international collaboration is to develop, test, and evaluate a generic software platform and interfaces that support the modeling and simulation of globally-distributed manufacturing enterprises. Companies and research organizations interested in advancing simulation and modeling applications within and across companies are encouraged to learn more about the collaborative project and its objectives. Work will be carried out by an international consortium, which will be organized and will operate in accordance with the Terms of Reference for the Participants in the Intelligent Manufacturing Systems Program. Attendance at the kick-off meeting is not mandatory. However, opportunities to join the consortium will be limited once technical activities get underway. To obtain information, organizations may contact Swee Leong, Rm. A127, Bldg. 220, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD 20899. Phone: 301/975-5426, Fax: 301-258-9749, email: swee.leong@nist.gov. The terms of reference for participating in IMS projects are available at the IMS site on the World Wide Web: http://www.ims.org/.

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