  The research area "Virtual Manufacturing (VM)'' is the use of information
technology and computer simulation to model real world manufacturing processes
for the purpose of analysing and understanding them. As automation technologies
such as CAD/CAM have substantially shortened the time required to design
products, Virtual Manufacturing will have a similar effect on the manufacturing
phase thanks to the modelling, simulation and optimisation of the product and
the processes involved in its fabrication. After a description of Virtual
Manufacturing (definitions and scope), we present some socio-economic factors
of VM and finaly some "hot topics'' for the future are proposed.
