This work explains the information infrastructure needed by manufacturing enterprises in order to share information and to co-ordinate decisions and control. This infrastructure should feature common methods and integrated applications for shop floor control, order processing, contract negotiation and co-operation in product and process development. The volume addresses five main topics: the co-ordination and systemization of information processing requirements and their synthesis into comprehensive conceptual models; the development of information infrastructures, amalgamating the conceptual models with computing, communication and storage technologies; the design of control architectures for interfacing information infrastructures with advanced machine tools and skillful people; conceptual modelling for extended enterprises and product life cycles; and the definition of information and communication services for enterprises co-operating in engineering and manufacturing processes.