Design of multi-agent based cloud integrated manufacturing system (CIMS) for new product development

Manufacturing industry has seen rapid changes in the last decade. Unprecedented growth of web and internet technologies has revolutionized the manufacturing industry from local to global competitive industry. Customer demand for customized and high quality product with lower cost and shorter life cycle has increased. In this agile environment, manufacturing industry need to be competitive, innovative, inter operative and collaborative to meet the changing demands of customer while maintaining productivity. Traditional manufacturing execution systems (MES), supply chain management (SCM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) are built upon rigid architecture that can’t respond fully in dynamic environment. In these circumstances, the challenge is to develop an integrated solution that is intelligent, agile, robust and have the potential to meet environmental and customer demands. Keeping the above issue in mind in this article, a multi-agent based cloud integrated manufacturing systems (CIMS) for new product development has been proposed. The introduction of cloud computing technology, with its versatile models of deployment makes inter and intra original equipment manufacturer (OEM) business processes smooth. Simultaneously, the cloud computing environment with agents will make OEM intelligent, robust, modular, decentralized, and scalable with wider information visibility across partners. This will further help industry to develop a collaborative manufacturing network in long run.