A cooperative process-management system based on the manufacturing grid

Abstract

The key features of manufacturing today are globalization, regional specialization, and multi-agent cooperation. The traditional network technologies have difficulties in meeting these demands in the new manufacturing environment, but the latest Grid technology provides new solutions. The development of Grid technology will significantly affect manufacturing. As a new manufacturing model, the Manufacturing Grid is emerging. Process management is an important aspect of manufacturing. In this work, a Grid-based cooperative process management system (GCPMS) was developed to cope with the complexity of worldwide production in the Internet environment. The following main modules are developed in the system: (1) the enterprise cooperation modelling module, (2) the project-management module, (3) the task-management module, and (4) the process-monitoring and control module. GCPMS benefits the dispersed institutions by creating a virtual project team to work together for a long-term project and effectively manage the cooperative process in manufacturing. The broader cooperation, application integration, and resource sharing are emphasized in the system. The open and standard interfaces bring GCPMS flexibility and scalability.

Keywords:

• Distributed cooperation modelling
• Manufacturing grid
• Grid
• Cooperative process-management system
• Grid-enable tools

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (60374057, 70271013) and the National 863 Hi-tech Plan Project of China (2005AA411910, 2004AA413030).