MIS in the Service Factory of the Future

This chapter deals with Management Information Systems situated in a futuristic context, namely that of a "service factory" of the future. The vision of such a service factory is to become a major driver for the large-scale exploitation of multi-agent information processing technologies, e.g. the manufacturing sector in a service-oriented view, and explore the potential of the "production as a service" approach as both an enabler and a catalyst towards the realisation of intelligent and environmentally conscious factories. In the chapter, the author presents the service factory concept and analyses its potential business impact. The chapter includes two appendices related to the real world validation of the concept with members of the industrial community.