Cloud Manufacturing: applicability domains of a new manufacturing paradigm

Information and digital technologies are penetrating the manufacturing world allowing enterprises to be more flexible, efficient and effective towards the market. Such a transformation has been named “the fourth industrial revolution” and it has become a prominent trend worldwide. Among these enabling technologies, cloud computing is one of the most interesting: the evolution of this paradigm (from the traditional Infrastructure, Platform and Software served on demand) has brought some authors to start talking about Cloud Manufacturing (CM), the manufacturing version of Cloud Computing where also manufacturing services can be encapsulated and served on-demand. In literature, several studies have been published, showing architectures, benefits and models for CM mainly focusing on technology issues, while it is hard to find reports on empirical examples. The objective of the study is to build a model to assess the applicability of Cloud Manufacturing, in order to understand which sector or sub-sector may be receptive to this new paradigm in the future. Starting from the literature the authors have created a qualitative model that answers such research question. The model consists in a matrix: on the rows it includes the requirements for CM in all the main steps from the RFQ (request for quotation) to the delivery of the product/service while on the column a system of scores is presented. To validate the model several companies belonging to different sectors have been interviewed. These interviews helped to retune the model and, following the opinions and suggestions provided by experts, the model was calibrated and the overall process validated. The model has been finally applied to some companies. The results reported in this paper shows that companies interviewed are not yet ready to apply the concept of CM because of some requirements not respected, but some industries are closer than other