CLOUD MANUFACTURING - TOWARDS RESILIENT AND SCALABLE HIGH VALUE MANUFACTURING

英国的经济繁荣将越来越依赖于维持和进一步扩大具有弹性和可持续发展的制造业，其基础是尖端技术、相关知识和技能基础，以及有能力更快、更好、更便宜地生产各种复杂产品的制造业基础设施。在劳动力成本高的经济体，制造业的竞争力将取决于最大限度地利用所有可用资源，增强人类的智力和创造力，并在从设计到生产、使用、维护到回收的整个产品生命周期中获取和利用现有的信息和知识。它还将需要一种基础设施，能够快速响应消费者和生产商的要求，最大限度地减少能源、交通、材料和资源的使用，同时最大化环境可持续性、安全性和经济竞争力。在信息学、计算机科学、运筹学和制造系统科学的最新发展的基础上，我们将通过以“云制造”概念为中心的研究计划来满足这些需求，云制造被定义为“一种模型，用于实现对共享的可配置制造资源池的无处不在的、方便的、按需的网络访问，该共享池可以在最少的管理工作或服务提供商交互的情况下快速提供和释放”。研究将采用云计算和众包的方法。“云”允许共享和挖掘设计和制造过程中的一系列数据源，以实现过程优化和提高响应能力；人群包括制造合作伙伴、设计师、物流合作伙伴和消费者，他们是潜在有价值的数据、信息以及产品和工艺知识的来源，可以为优化复杂的制造环境而引出。该方法允许在制造空间内进行开放创新的新模式，使新企业能够在不需要大量资本投资的情况下出现。该研究方案从根本上背离了目前制造信息和通信技术的理念--它将建立一个框架，让实际制造实体的信息和支助服务参与性地提供给产品的消费者和用户。这种变革性的方法提出了理论、技术、实践、伦理和社会方面的挑战，我们将通过新的基础多学科研究来应对这些挑战。虽然已经采取了一些试探性步骤来利用制造业中的云概念，但实现未来云制造的全部潜力所需的理论方法、基础设施和科学知识尚未建立。我们的目标是制定一个整体框架，并通过以下途径了解其在全球制造网络中的作用：寻找合适的产品、部门、规模和数量；识别从设计到制造、维护和回收的受影响的生命周期阶段；了解新产品设计和制造将如何受到生命周期数据的影响；最后分析云制造将如何影响未来的产品，从而实现部件和服务的本地按需供应。云制造提供了深远的机遇，但面临着重大的研究挑战，包括：了解设计宣传资料和生产设施方面的多样化资源基础；整合和集成客户/用户智能；以及在安全、开放、面向服务的平台中表示和处理信息。

UK economic prosperity will increasingly depend on maintaining and further expanding a resilient and sustainable manufacturing sector based on sophisticated technologies, relevant knowledge and skill bases, and manufacturing infrastructure that has the ability to produce a high variety of complex products faster, better and cheaper. In high labour cost economies, manufacturing competitiveness will depend on maximising the utilisation of all available resources, empowering human intelligence and creativity, and capturing and capitalising on available information and knowledge for the total product lifecycle from design, through production, use and maintenance to recycling. It will also require an infrastructure that can quickly respond to consumer and producer requirements and minimise energy, transport, materials and resource usage while maximising environmental sustainability, safety and economic competitiveness. Building on the latest developments in Informatics, Computer Science, Operations Research, and Manufacturing Systems Science, we will address these needs with a research programme centred on the concept of 'Cloud Manufacturing', which has been defined as ''a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable manufacturing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction''. The research will adopt the methods of cloud computing and crowdsourcing. The 'cloud' allows a range of data sources within design and manufacturing processes to be shared and mined to enable process optimisation and increase responsiveness; the crowds encompass manufacturing partners, designers, logistics partners, and consumers who are sources of potentially valuable data, information and product and process knowledge that can be elicited for optimising complex manufacturing environments. The approach admits new models for open innovation within the manufacturing space, enabling new enterprises to arise without a need for a large capital investment. The research programme is a radical departure from the current philosophy of manufacturing ICT - it will create a framework for participatory contribution of information from the actual manufacturing entities and support services to the consumers and users of products. This transformational approach presents theoretical, technical, practical, ethical and social challenges that we will meet through new fundamental multidisciplinary research.Whilst there have been some tentative steps taken to harness cloud concepts in manufacturing the theoretical methods, infrastructure and scientific knowledge needed to deliver the full potential of future cloud manufacturing have yet to be established. We aim to develop a holistic framework and understand its role within global manufacturing networks through: seeking the appropriate products, sectors, scales and volumes; identifying the impacted lifecycle stages from design to manufacture, maintenance and re-cycling; understanding how new product design and manufacturing will be influenced by lifecycle data; and finally analysing how future products will be influenced by cloud manufacturing enabling local on-demand supply of components and services. Cloud Manufacturing provides far reaching opportunities but has major research challenges including: understanding the diverse resource base, both in design collateral and production facilities; incorporating and integrating customer/user intelligence; and the representation and processing of information within a secure open service-oriented platform.