The State of the Art of Cloud Manufacturing and Future Trends

Cloud manufacturing has emerged as a new manufacturing paradigm, which combines technologies (such as Internet of Things, Cloud computing, semantic Web, virtualisation and service-oriented technologies) with advanced manufacturing models, information and communication technologies. It aims to be networked, intelligent, service-oriented, knowledge-based and energy efficient, and promises a variety of benefits and advantages by providing fast, reliable and secure on-demand services for users. It is envisioned that companies in all sectors of manufacturing will be able to package their resources and know-hows in the Cloud, making them conveniently available for others through pay-as-you-go, which is also timely and economically attractive. Resources, e.g. manufacturing software tools, applications, knowledge and fabrication capabilities, will then be made accessible to presumptive consumers on a worldwide basis. After surveying a vast array of available publications, this paper presents an up-to-date literature review together with future trends and research directions in Cloud manufacturing.