This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes concurrent engineering design and manufacturing and its requirements and provides an introduction to Distributed Artificial Intelligence and to agent technology. It discusses key issues in developing agent-based concurrent engineering design and manufacturing systems: knowledge representation, agent architectures, learning, communication, cooperation, coordination, negotiation, conflict resolution, and ontology. The book reviews significant and relevant agent-based systems. All selected projects are described in a unified format, to facilitate understanding and comparison of the different approaches. The book explores methodology, frameworks, tools, languages, and finally a general procedure for building agent-based concurrent engineering design and manufacturing systems. Agent technology is widely recognized as a promising paradigm for the next generation of design and manufacturing systems. Researchers have already applied agent technology to concurrent engineering, collaborative engineering design, manufacturing enterprise integration, supply chain management, manufacturing planning, scheduling and control, material handling, and holonic manufacturing systems.