Walker, MarkLi, Qingxue2017-11-152017-11-152005DIT112624http://hdl.handle.net/10321/2710Submitted in partial fulfilment of the academic requirements for the Degree of Doctoral of Technology in Mechanical Engineering, Durban Institute of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2005.Increased global competition is challenging manufacturing industries to bring competitively priced, well-designed and well-manufactured products into the marketplace as quickly as possible. Manufacturing companies are responding to these challenges in their industry by extending current internet trends to create virtual marketplaces where factories, suppliers, and customers are part of the solution. Pressing demands to reduce lead-time by providing a suitable manufacturing price for a product has become an important step in the current competition age. This thesis presents an approach for providing a quotation for a product via the web, automatically and autonomously.189 penManufacturing processes--Data processingThesishttps://doi.org/10.51415/10321/2710