A Conceptual Framework for Collaborative Cloud Manufacturing

Cloud manufacturing is proposed to deal with current issues of the manufacturing industry such as geographically distributed factories, customer-driven strategies, flexible manufacturing etc. New approaches such as the internet of things (IoT), big data, cloud computing etc. can be integrated to support cloud manufacturing. Despite the significant benefits of cloud manufacturing, this concept is still at an early stage of development; many companies are not familiar with this approach with little knowledge of how their business strategy can be aligned with cloud manufacturing. The goal here is to provide a framework for cloud manufacture to aid manufacturers move to cloud manufacturing, for relatively little relevant literature and examples of commercial implementations of cloud manufacturing exists. Therefore this work is based on qualitative research with a case study representing a prototype cloud manufacturing system. Application Store for SW Company is software developed by ATR Soft Oy and SW Company (China office) and served as a basis for further development of the conceptual framework. We consider cloud manufacturing as a system of collaboration between partners, suppliers and customers permitting manufacturers to share resources and capabilities, knowledge and services. Our contribution is a conceptual framework of cloud manufacturing including an implementation map, strategic and collaboration models for adaption to cloud manufacturing systems by manufacturing enterprises.