Cloud manufacturing as a sustainable process manufacturing route

Abstract

Cloud Manufacturing (CM) is a service oriented business model to share manufacturing capabilities and resources on a cloud platform. Manufacturing is under pressure to achieve cost and environmental impact reductions, as manufacturing becomes more integrated and complex. Cloud manufacturing offers a solution, as it is capable of making intelligent decisions to provide the most sustainable and robust manufacturing route available. Although CM research has progressed, a consensus is still lacking on the concepts within CM as well as applications and scope beyond discrete manufacturing.The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how CM offers a more sustainable manufacturing future to the industry as a whole, before focusing specifically on the application to process manufacturing (e.g. food, pharmaceuticals and chemicals). This paper details the definitions, characteristics, architectures and previous case studies on CM. From this, the fundamental aspects of the CM concept are identified, along with an analysis of how the concept has progressed. A new, comprehensive CM definition is formulated by combining key concepts drawn from previous definitions and emphasizes CM potential for sustainable manufacturing.Four key methods of how CM increases sustainability are identified: (1) collaborative design; (2) greater automation; (3) improved process resilience and (4) enhanced waste reduction, reuse and recovery. The first two key methods are common to both discrete and process manufacturing, however key methods (3) and ( 4) are more process manufacturing specific and application of CM for these has yet to be fully realised. Examples of how CM's characteristics may be utilised to solve various process manufacturing problems are presented to demonstrate the applications of CM to process manufacturing. Waste is an important consideration in manufacturing, with strong sustainability implications. The current focus has been on using CM for waste minimisation; however, process manufacturing offers waste as a resource (valorisation opportunities from diversifying co-products, reuse, recycle and energy recovery). Exploring CM's potential to characterise and evaluate alternative process routes for the valorisation of process manufacturing waste is considered for the first time. The specific limitations preventing CM adoption by process manufacturers are discussed. Finally, CM's place in the future of manufacturing is explored, including how it will interact with, and complement other emerging manufacturing technologies to deliver a circular economy and personalised products.

Channel Selection and Pricing Decisions Considering Three Charging Modes of Production Capacity Sharing Platform: A Sustainable Operations Perspective

“…Meanwhile, the production capacity sharing platform makes it possible for manufacturing enterprises to share surplus production capacity, which reduces waste and increases production efficiency. The services of the platform improve sustainability characteristics of the products, which facilitates sustainable supply chain management in terms of transactions and social welfare [12,13]. This paper focused on the design of production capacity sharing mechanism from the perspective of sustainable operations.…”

“…Firstly, the products can be produced from surplus production capacity, which is environmentally friendly and economical [11,12]. Figure 1 shows the process of production capacity sharing [11,13]. Platforms can integrate massive and fragmented surplus production capacity from owners of equipment that is underutilized and help manufacturers with capacity constraints share the surplus production capacity with surplus production capacity suppliers (denoted by "capacity suppliers") through technologies such as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT).…”

“…In addition, as charging mode changes, the trend of changes in consumer surplus and social welfare is the same as that in the market share of products from the sharing channel.More specifically, from the perspective of actual operations, production capacity sharing brings new directions to sustainable supply chain management issues. For example, as consumers have become more sustainably concerned [16,17], production capacity sharing on the platforms is an effective alternative for manufacturing enterprises to ensure competitive advantage by meeting demands of the market, reduce their risk of wasting capacity, no longer face with the selection limitations, optimize business scheduling, and gain new revenue streams [13]. However, production capacity sharing mechanism design considering sharing features is challenging.…”

Development of a Smart Cyber-Physical Manufacturing System in the Industry 4.0 Context

“…The development of manufacturing not only considers technological innovations but also economic, social and environmental effects [4,7]. In the literature, many novel paradigms known as intelligent manufacturing systems (IMS) [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] have been proposed such as holonic [16], biological [17], reconfigurable [18], and cloud manufacturing systems [19].…”

“…The development of manufacturing not only considers technological innovations but also economic, social and environmental effects [4,7]. In the literature, many novel paradigms known as intelligent manufacturing systems (IMS) [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] have been proposed such as holonic [16], biological [17], reconfigurable [18], and cloud manufacturing systems [19].In the manufacturing field, Industry 4.0 is characterized by the autonomous systems with cyber and physical representation [20][21][22] and advance in ICT [23] such as cloud computing [24], internet of things (IoT), internet of service (IoS) [25][26][27][28][29], agent technology [30][31][32][33][34][35], cognitive technology [36,37], big data [38,39], data mining [40,41], and artificial intelligence [42][43][44][45][46][47]. Smart manufacturing systems (SMS) built with intelligent cyber-physical systems (CPSs) are the heart of the fourth industrial revolution [21,48].…”