Value assessment of cloud manufacturing for large-scale manufacturing organizations

Abstract: This master thesis assesses the potential of Cloud Manufacturing applications in large-scale manufacturing. Firstly, this thesis determines the benefits and drawbacks of and the barriers to the implementation of Cloud Manufacturing. Secondly, five interviews were conducted with two companies that had begun implementing Cloud Manufacturing within their organizations. Lastly, Cloud Manufacturing was analyzed, using both the findings of relevant literature and insights from the two case studies, to identify where current research and the real-world converged, or diverged. The Hierarchical Production Planning framework was utilized to connect the identified advantages of Cloud Manufacturing to its impact on production systems. Further, the Diffusion of Innovation model was used to evaluate the barriers to implementing the application. This analysis provided a basis for both the potential impact and the complications of the implementation and utilization of each Cloud Manufacturing application. Consequently, it provides an assessment of the overall potential that Cloud Manufacturing can bring large-scale manufacturing organizations. Cloud manufacturing is overall found to provide benefits in terms of cost savings, improved data accessibility, increased efficiency, and higher resource utilization. Some key barriers that are necessary to overcome for wider adoption across the manufacturing industry are capable infrastructure, adequate organizational skills, proper management of data, and high investment requirements.