The problem each manufacturer repeatedly faces is how to meet demand by making available the required quantities of products in the specified quality and at proper time. From the four main R&D directions, i.e., adaptive manufacturing, digital manufacturing, knowledge-based manufacturing, and networked manufacturing, emphasized by the European initiative Manufuture, mostly the first two are underlined in the paper by illustrating some solution approaches. However, all the related issues, i.e., knowledge-based manufacturing and networked manufacturing, together with the requirements of real-time functioning and cooperativeness are kept in view.