Cloud-based manufacturing equipment and big data analytics to enable on-demand manufacturing services

Abstract

Making manufacturing as on-demand cloud services is a transformative paradigm to achieve the required business flexibility in the context of Industry 4.0 via enabling rapid configuration of loosely-connected manufacturing devices to develop highly customized products. The research in this paper aimed to fill the gap that there is a lack of a feasible solution for cloud-based manufacturing equipment that can provide on-demand manufacturing services accessible via the Internet. The technical challenges in developing cloud-based manufacturing equipment and the enabling technologies are discussed. A generic system architecture for cloud-based manufacturing equipment based on cyber-physical production systems and big data analytics is proposed, allowing manufacturing equipment to be connected to the cloud and made available for the provision of on-demand manufacturing services. An industry implementation in a world-leading machinery solution provider confirms that the proposed system architecture for cloud-based manufacturing equipment can successfully enable on-demand manufacturing services provisioned via the Internet and can be extended to businesses that endeavor to transform legacy production systems into cloud-based cyber-physical production systems. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd