Software-defined Cloud Manufacturing for Industry 4.0

Many of the world's leading industrial nations have invested in national initiatives to foster advanced manufacturing, innovation, and design for the globalized world. Much of this investment has been driven by visions such as Industry 4.0, striving to achieve a future where intelligent factories and smart manufacturing are the norm. Within this realm, innovations such as the Industrial Internet of Things, Cloud-based Design and Manufacturing (CBDM), and Social Product Development (SPD) have emerged with a focus on capitalizing on the benefits and economies of scale provided by Internet Protocol (IP) communication technologies. Another emerging idea is the notion of software-defined systems such as software-defined networks, which exploit abstraction and inexpensive hardware advancements in an effort to build more flexible systems. Recently, the authors have begun considering how the notion of software-defined systems might be harnessed to achieve flexible cloud manufacturing systems. As a result, this paper introduces the notion of Software-Defined Cloud Manufacturing (SDCM). We describe a basic SDCM architecture based on leveraging abstraction between manufacturing hardware and cloud-based applications, services, and platforms. The goal of SDCM is to advance Cloud-Based Manufacturing and other Industry 4.0 pillars by providing agility, flexibility, and adaptability while also reducing various complexity challenges.