Glossary Terms
Terms that are used on the Manufacturing Automation website

EDI

Electronic Data Interchange is a standard for automated exchange of
business documents that allows purchasers and suppliers to exchange
digital paperwork, such as purchase orders, invoices and other business
documents, and to perform electronic funds transfers.

EDMS

Engineering Document Management System.

EEPROM

Electrically Eraseable Programmable Read Only Memory.

Effectiveness

Meeting agreed-upon requirements for supplier inputs and customer outputs.

Efficiency Minimizing time and/or other resources spent on activities which do not add value.

EIS

Equipment identification system

Employee Involvement

A practice within an organization whereby employees regularly
participate in making decisions on how their work is done, including
making suggestions for improvement, planning, goal setting and
monitoring performance.

Empowerment

A condition whereby employees have the authority to make decisions and take action on their own without prior approval.

Enclosure

a surrounding case that protects equipment from its environment, and
protects personnel against contact with the enclosed equipment.

Encoder

A feedback device that translates mechanical motion into electrical
signals indicative of actuator position. Incremental and absolute
encoders are common varieties; as the names imply, their output
indicates incremental or absolute changes of position.

Encoding

The process of putting information into digital format.

End user interface (EUI)

interface through which an application program provides information to people.

Entity

Something about which information is stored, either tangible or not,
such as an employee or a part on the one hand, or an event or abstract
concept on the other.

ERP

Enterprise Resource Planning is recognized as a logistical extension of MRP.

Ethernet

The standard for local communications networks developed jointly by
Digital Equipment Corp., Xerox, and Intel. Ethernet baseband coaxial
cable transmits data at speeds up to 10 megabits per second. Ethernet
is used as the underlying transport vehicle by several upper-level
protocols, including TCP/IP.

Expert system

software that applies knowledge and reasoning techniques that involve
rules and heuristics to solve problems normally requiring the abilities
of human experts.