Architectural Holarchy of the Next Generation Manufacturing System

Nowadays, the global energy network can generate and transmit, between any two points belonging to it, high quantity of energy. During recent years, a global information network, able to process, store, and transmit huge amounts of information, has been developed as well. These networks entirely cover the industrial space, already giving the opportunity to make permanently available, in any of its points, at any time, as much as needed, both energy and information. On the other hand, the mass customization trend has led to the pronounced increase of “manufacturing to order” (MTO) production, taking place in a higher and higher number of small & medium enterprises. At this level, a given manufacturing system cannot be quickly and appropriately configured to a given product, due to production high variability in range. As consequence, the manufacturing system is, quite always, more or less unadjusted to the manufactured product, its performance being significantly affected. Starting from here, the challenge is to make a conceptual rebuilding of the manufacturing system, aiming to increase its degree of appropriateness to products, by taking advantage from the opportunities brought by the existence of global energy & information networks. This paper approach is to see the next generation manufacturing system as holonic modular cyber-physical system. System architecture permanently accords to the manufactured product requirements. The function, procedure, topology and holarchy model of the system are presented. The main features of the system are also revealed.