Distributed Manufacturing: A Vision about Shareconomy in the Manufacturing Industry

Abstract

Four major trends in recent manufacturing technology have been identified and are introduced. Those trends are mass customization, shareconomy, digitalization and cloud manufacturing. The impact of those trends on manufacturing paradigms has been evaluated and three possible paradigms have been identified. Those manufacturing paradigms are separation of design and manufacturing, collaboration across company borders and on-site production. The separation of design and manufacturing does empower customers with regard to the product and does allow true mass customization where customers are included in the product description process. The collaboration across company borders does empower customers in regard of the process and lets them choose their contractual partner for every production step. The following on-site-production focuses on the throughput and thus on the delivery time by re-location of the production into the end-customers' daily field of action. Each paradigm is explained, the vision of possible future implementations is drawn and the possible benefits are outlined. However, the technical realization of those paradigms is yet not fully feasible due to still unsolved problems and challenges. Therefore, a research agenda has been composed to list and address those deficits. The main deficits that have been identified are the lack of standardized data models, an integrated and automated toolchain, the protection of intellectual property and the compliance with quality demands.