Over the last decade, communities involved with intelligent-manufacturing systems (IMS - Intelligent Manufacturing Systems, HMS - Holonic Manufacturing System) have demonstrated that systems that integrate intelligent products can be more efficient, flexible and adaptable. Intelligent products may prove to be beneficial economically, to deal with product traceability and information sharing along the product lifecycle. Nevertheless, there are still some open questions such as the specification of what information should be gathered, stored and distributed and how it should be managed during the lifecycle of the product. The contribution of this thesis is to define a process for disseminating information related to the product over the its lifecycle. This process is combined with a new paradigm, which changes drastically the way we view the material. This concept aims to give the ability for the material to be intrinsically and wholly communicating. The data dissemination process allow users to store context-sensitive information on communicating product. In addition to the data dissemination process, this thesis gives insight into the technological and scientific research fields inherent to the concept of communicating material, which remain to be explored.
