Advanced Engineering Environments for Small Manufacturing Enterprises: Volume I

Advanced engineering environments (AEEs) are computational and communications systems that link researchers, technologists, designers, manufacturers, suppliers, and customers during the design phase of a product. AEEs consist of design tools, data repositories, and the networks that link these components and other enterprise processes. AEEs can improve the productivity of small manufacturing enterprises (SMEs), but many SMEs do not know how to use them. This report is the first of a two-volume series providing an overview of AEE technologies, their benefits for SMEs, and the technical considerations for AEE adoption.