Cloud Manufacturing in Support of Sustainability

In a modern manufacturing business, collaborations not only exist among its own departments, but also among business partners. Cloud Manufacturing can assist this type of collaborations. As a new paradigm of manufacturing network, Cloud Manufacturing combines Cloud Computing with networked manufacturing under service-oriented architecture. It is set to fundamentally change how products are designed, manufactured, shipped and maintained. Besides the support to collaborative and intelligent manufacturing processes, it is also possible to realize sustainability in the Cloud Manufacturing paradigm. In this paper, recent Cloud Manufacturing approaches are discussed from the sustainable manufacturing perspective. The major difference between Cloud Manufacturing and web-based manufacturing systems are specifically discussed. Cloud-based methods are analyzed to support reasonable and logic strategies. It is believed that Cloud Manufacturing can provide a strong support to the manufacturing industry, in particular for sustainability.