Abstract
In the last two decades there has been a marked trend in manufacturing away from function-centered production organisations towards product-based manufacturing shops and smaller organisational units. These new organisation structures reduce management complexity and facilitate greater human involvement and empowerment. Modern manufacturing facilities must be flexible, to allow for rapid reconfiguring of resources as dictated by variable demands. Today's tools for production planning and scheduling are not flexible enough, most of them being based on a certain production structure. A newly-developed kernel/shell technology aims at a software architecture for shop central not being based on any assumption of the production structure. it should be possible to support almost any structure, organisation and scheduling algorithm. A central kernel acts as a service provider for a broad array of shell modules for scheduling, interfacing with legacy systems database I/O, user interaction, SCADA interfacing, etc. This technology for shop control provides a high degree of customisation, flexibility and extendibility.

Abstract
Mixed hardware/software applications may profit from the use of dynamically reconfigurable hardware for improved performance and adaptability. For this class of systems, the hardware, like the software, can be adapted during execution to the data being processed or to the reactions of the external system being controlled. This paper presents the prototype of an interactive system that supports the rapid development of such applications for a personal computer. The LISP-based prototype supports the assembly of hardware configurations in runtime by combination of component blocks from libraries; it also provides tools for partitioning computations described by a domain-independent data-flow model between software and hardware implementations. Whatever the implementation mode, computations are invoked in a uniform manner, making the dynamically reconfigurable hardware transparent to the user.

Abstract
This paper describes an <> system to support decision making in the planning processes of Virtual Enterprises, viewed as networks of different units, namely plants, logistic centres and storage facilities. The system aims at improving customer due date calculation, and is intended to be a multi-site planning tool to co-ordinate local activities across the Virtual Enterprise network. It is based on the use of aggregate information and on a set of local rough capacity models. This work is part of a broader project with a particular focus on the microelectronics industry. Companies of this industry are a good example of Virtual Enterprises, where a quick response to the customers needs and to unpredictable changes in production conditions is considered a major factor for success.

Abstract
This article describes a new approach to synthesize dedicated hardware from a system specification using the Java language. The new compiler named GALADRIEL starts from Java classfiles produced from the initial Java specification and processes the system information in order to exploit the concurrency implicit in each method, so that it can be efficiently implemented by multiple hardware and/or software components. The paper gives emphasis to the compiler techniques used to exploit the implicit concurrency and to the use of high-level synthesis to generate the hardware models from the Java bytecodes information.

Abstract
CANopen is a field level communication protocol for industrial automation distributed applications. The acceptance of CANopen is already widespread and continues growing, because it offers not only all the well known features of CAN for real-time communication, but also a powerful set of higher level Application Layer services. These services implement an object-oriented distributed environment for simplified system integration, but still they allow for a very high level of communication efficiency. Often, sensors and actuators have to be placed at geographically remote locations, at considerable distances from the processor(s) running a control application. When this is the case, a possible solution, that is gaining increasing popularity, is to use an autonomous I/O module, located close to the sensors and actuators, that provides the application with an interface to these devices. For this to be possible, the application must be distributed between the remote I/O module and the local processor(s) using a communication network to allow the different parts to cooperate. This work is centred on the development of an I/O module of the type previously described, based on the SAB-C167CR-LM chip from SIEMENS. The device is able, on one hand, to interface with sensors and actuators using digital signals and, on the other hand, to communicate using the CANopen protocol. In other words, the I/O module makes sensors and actuators accessible via the CAN bus, using the CANopen protocol. The objective is to show that CANopen can be implemented over new hardware platforms, in minimum time, with satisfactory results. It is shown that CANopen provides a systems-integrator-friendly object-oriented environment and that for this reason, the CANopen Communication Profile greatly simplifies the implementation of distributed applications in CAN based systems. Furthermore, CANopen also provides flexible realtime data transfer mechanisms that are able to meet time-critical constraints and, therefore,make CANopen a good solution for distributed control environments.

Abstract
This paper introduces a conceptual modelling approach for supporting the requirements analysis and specification of information systems according to technical and socio-organisational perspectives, particularly in manufacturing enterprises. The approach is based in the so-called Techno-Organisational Development Ontologies that act as a conceptual core for perspectives mediation. A case study based on semi-conductor virtual enterprises is presented illustrating the validity of the approach.