It is often difficult to combine a production management system, a design system and a potential document and production data system. Each system has been designed to serve a certain user group. Tero Salonen reports. Many products are required in relatively low production quantities, eg a few thousand, a few hundred or even less, right down to one-offs. Westinghouse Electric Company has already linked its detailed 3D model for an advanced nuclear power plant to its construction schedule using Intergraph's SmartPlant Review software, shortening the construction cycle (which greatly reduces its construction costs), ensuring the buildability of the plant as designed and using the model as an information tool for both technical and non-technical audiences. Across many diverse disciplines, engineers and scientists are starting to recognise the vast potential for micro-electromechanical systems (Mems) given their miniscule size (Fig.1).