Due to the proliferation of Information and Communication (ICT) and Internet Technologies, the manufacturing industry is undergoing substantial transformations. These are substantial – not only in terms of hardware (Cyber-Physical Production Systems – CPS, robotics) but especially in terms of the software and services used within production environments. The manufacturing processes of the future need to be highly flexible and dynamic in order to satisfy customer demands for, e.g. large series production, mass customization, or changing orders. The organisations are also changing and manufacturing companies are not only part of sequential, long-term supply chains, but also part of (potentially) extensive manufacturing networks which require agile collaboration between partners. Companies involved in such networks need to be able to design, configure, execute, and monitor a very large number of manufacturing process instances, each representing a different order and supply chain instance.
In order to keep pace with the needs of the manufacturing industry of the future (also sometimes called Industry 4.0 or Manufacturing 4.0) companies need to be able to flexibly react to customer demands, i.e. be able to offer production capacities in a rapid way. On the other hand, companies looking for manufacturing capacity need to be supported by the means to find these capacities, configure, and integrate into their own processes.
Therefore, the support of complex, scalable, cross-organizational manufacturing processes by according software solutions is a foundation for the Factories of the Future and is estimated to be a crucial success factor in this field.
In examining ways to achieve this, one obvious approach is to port essential and successful concepts and principles from the field of Everything-as-a-Service (XaaS) and Cloud computing to manufacturing:
• Leasing and releasing manufacturing assets in an on-demand, utility-like fashion,
• Rapid elasticity through scaling leased assets up and down if necessary, and
• Pay-per-use through metered service.
Applying these principles, Cloud manufacturing can be realized, and it is possible to move from production-oriented manufacturing processes to service-oriented process networks by modelling single manufacturing assets as services in a similar vein as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) are already provided by Cloud providers. By modelling all process steps and manufacturing assets as services, agile collaboration through flexible and scalable manufacturing processes is facilitated. It is possible to realize cross-organization manufacturing orchestrations and integrate distributed resources to more efficiently manufacture products. Providers of manufacturing services may offer their capabilities in a pool of configurable manufacturing assets and resources that can then be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort and service provider interaction. By leasing these services, process owners (who want to build a supply chain for a particular product) are able to optimise their manufacturing approach and to react flexibly towards changing situations.
While the theoretical foundations for Cloud manufacturing are manifest and easy to follow, there is a lack of real world implementations and applications of this concept, let alone production-line demonstrations. Still, no proven tools and technologies exist in the market to provide valuable end-to-end integration ICT solutions applying Cloud manufacturing principles. Thus, current approaches do not allow for the necessary innovation and higher management and operational efficiency in networked operations – this project aims to change this fact by providing Cloud-based Rapid Elastic MAnufacturing (CREMA).
CREMA will be built upon concepts and methods from the fields of Virtual Factories, Service-oriented Computing, Ubiquitous Computing, CPS, the Internet of Things and the Internet of Services, and naturally and most importantly Cloud computing. To achieve its goals, the project will define tools and approaches in these areas:
• Manufacturing Virtualization & Interoperability
• Cloud Manufacturing Process and Optimisation Framework
• Cloud Manufacturing Collaboration, Knowledge and Stakeholder Interaction Framework
Thus, CREMA will be able to offer full end-to-end integration of Cloud manufacturing, from the integration of manufacturing assets and corresponding data sources, the design and execution of manufacturing processes, to the end user support via collaboration and interaction tools.
CREMA aims at simplifying the establishment, management, adaptation, and monitoring of dynamic, cross-organizational manufacturing processes following Cloud manufacturing principles. CREMA will develop the means to model, configure, execute, and monitor manufacturing processes, providing end-to-end support for Cloud manufacturing by implementing real systems and testing and demonstrating them in real manufacturing environments.
