Title: Virtualise manufacturing capabilities in the cloud: requirements, architecture and implementation

Authors: Xi Wang; Xun Xu

Addresses: Department of Production Engineering, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Brinellvägen 68, 114 28 Stockholm, Sweden ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Auckland, 20 Symonds St, Auckland 1010, New Zealand

Abstract: In recent years, cloud manufacturing concept has been proposed by taking advantage of cloud computing to enhance the performance of manufacturing industry. Cloud manufacturing can be perceived as two types, i.e., manufacturing version of computing cloud, and a distributed environment that is networked around manufacturing cloud. This paper discusses manufacturing resources, abilities and relevant essentials from the service-oriented perspective. The functional requirements of a cloud manufacturing environment are also discussed, along with an interoperable manufacturing system framework. Cloud resource integration methods have been developed based on the function block and software agent technologies. It is possible to achieve a collaborative, intelligent, and distributed environment via cloud manufacturing technologies. [Received 27 February 2014; Revised 25 April 2014; Accepted 29 July 2014]

Keywords: manufacturing clouds; cloud computing; cloud manufacturing; service-oriented architecture; SOA; virtual function blocks; VFB; interoperable manufacturing systems; interoperability; cloud resource integration; software agents.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMR.2014.066665

International Journal of Manufacturing Research, 2014 Vol.9 No.4, pp.348 - 368

Published online: 11 Jan 2015 *

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