It is widely accepted that the global environment requires the creation of a new manufacturing paradigm. The new paradigm has to take into account the limits of the global environment, provide more customized products with higher value added, have the capability to re-configure the products for different purposes and also produce and reproduce a single product in various facilities. As one principal idea of the new paradigm, environmental consciousness is becoming one of the core competencies of a company. Customers require environmentally friendly products and society requires environmentally conscious manufacturing from the company. This is the reason why companies must take environmental consciousness seriously in their technology strategy as part of the business strategy. Some of the ideas under development today will become future core competencies of the company. Three industrial case studies are presented here. Process plants form a major part of Finnish heavy metal and engineering industry production. Many of the companies in the specialized fields are market leaders in the world. A number of major companies in the Finnish metal and engineering industry have started a technology development program, PRODEA—development of process plant realization—to utilize the latest CIM (computer integrated manufacture) technologies for the enhancement of process plant realization. Two test cases describing the use of expert systems and case-based reasoning technology in supporting the realization are presented in this paper.
