American manufacturers seek to recapture world leadership and respect. The specific technical goals are to exploit lean manufacturing (e.g., greater efficiency and lower cost), flexibility (e.g., variation in production runs to allow for consumer preferences), and agility (e.g., supporting small production runs, rapid retooling, and exploitation of the kinds of electronic commerce services described in Section 2.2).
In addition, companies will be able to band together to jointly manufacture goods. This will require rapid tailoring and composition of shared information services such as inventory control, work scheduling, and product delivery. Potential machine tool vendors and other manufacturing support companies will be willing to provide simulations of new process-control and planning software to enable companies to test before they buy. In addition, software specialty companies will provide access to powerful computer-aided design tools that are currently too expensive for purchase by small companies. This is economically viable because a small company can access both the software and the human expertise that lies behind it, through coordinated on-line consulting services.