Manufacturing grid: a next generation manufacturing model

We envision that manufacturing would be operated in a more integrated and collaborative fashion in the future. A manufacturing grid would be created for low-cost and high productivity productions through controlled resource sharing across enterprises just like a computational grid. All participants (i.e., factories) in the manufacturing grid would provide designated production services for making different products. This paper introduces such an innovative concept. A formal model defining how a manufacturing grid would operate in the future is proposed. A simplified application is prototyped.