Cloud-Based Design and Manufacturing

Introduction

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) offers the following definition of Cloud Computing (Mell, P. & Grance, T., 2011). According to them, Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.

Many authors proposed definitions of Cloud Manufacturing. Li, B.H., Zhang, L.,…&Jiang, X.D., 2010 proposed a first definition of Cloud Manufacturing. According to them, Cloud manufacturing is a computing and service-oriented manufacturing model developed from existing advanced manufacturing models (e.g. ASP, AM, NM, MGrid) and enterprise information technologies under the support of cloud computing, IoT, virtualization and service-oriented technologies, and advanced computing technologies. It transforms manufacturing resources and manufacturing capabilities into manufacturing services, which can be managed and operated in an intelligent and unified way to enable the full sharing and circulating of manufacturing resources and manufacturing capabilities. CM can provide safe and reliable, high quality, cheap and on-demand manufacturing services for the whole lifecycle of manufacturing. The concept of manufacturing here refers to big manufacturing that includes the whole lifecycle of a product (e.g. design, simulation, production, test, maintenance). Cloud manufacturing is a type of parallel, networked, and distributed system consisting of an integrated and inter-connected virtualized service pool (manufacturing cloud) of manufacturing resources and capabilities as well as capabilities of intelligent management and on-demand use of services to provide solutions for all kinds of users involved in the whole lifecycle of manufacturing.

Xu, X., 2011 defines Cloud Manufacturing as a set of distributed resources which are encapsulated into cloud services and managed in a centralized way. Clients can use cloud services according to their requirements. Cloud users can request services ranging from product design, manufacturing, testing, management, and all other stages of a product life cycle.

Giriraj, S. & Muthu, S., 2012 investigated the guaranteeing assembly process information flow in real time, enterprise wide, from assembly station sensors directly to the industry policy making offices, is the true solution for improving productivity competence, reducing loses and greater than ever profits. In fact, the ideal production lies on the real machine or assembly capabilities of working non-stop at maximum speed, lacking downtimes or inactivity and assembled goods reject threats. Assembly lines will be prone to standstills and will produce defective pieces if the machines are unable to working to their full capability or demands made of them. This is often the case of misinformed factory management on real time factory floor performances. Even though equipped with original equipment manufacturer indicator knowledge about their systems, they still can’ t get that efficiency so needed to improve yield. Transformation is necessary to ride the expected tide of change in the today’s manufacturing environment, particularly in the information technology and automation landscape. A multinational company strives to reduce computing costs, to improve plant floor visibility and to achieve more efficient energy and surroundings use of their IT hardware and software investments. Cloud computing infrastructure accelerates and promotes these objectives by providing unparalleled flexible and dynamic IT resource collection, virtualization, floor visibility and high accessibility.

Wu, D., Thames, L., Rosen, D. & Shaefer, D.(2012) propose the following definition of CBDM. According to them, Cloud-Based Design and Manufacturing refers to a product realization model that enables collective open innovation and rapid product development with minimum costs through a social networking and negotiation platform between service providers and consumers. It is a type of parallel and distributed system consisting of a collection of inter-connected physical and virtualized service pools of design and manufacturing resources (e.g., parts, assemblies, CAD/CAM tools) as well as intelligent search capabilities for design and manufacturing solutions.