The objective of this EArly-concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) collaborative project is to conduct a critical review and to develop a set of set of requirements for protocols and architectures for extensible, adaptable, and scalable manufacturing. Revolutionary advances in Information Technology (IT) have fueled the ubiquitous use of the Internet which has rapidly changed the manner in which we work, live and play. Impact of Internet technologies can be seen in diverse areas of national priority such as health care, energy and public safety. These advances have also promoted e-commerce for cyber shopping, communication and other service markets. However, in the general domain of manufacturing, the adoption of these IT advances has not been widespread due to unique challenges. There is a great need to investigate issues related to web-architectures that can foster an organic, community-involved development of software tools. Based on these requirements, the plan is to either identify existing architectures or propose an innovative architecture for the manufacturing context outlined. This architecture needs to enable enterprise partners (in the broader manufacturing community) to use, modify and adapt existing software tools essential to their own activities but also interface with this web-based architecture so that various manufacturing and related service activities can be realized.
Such a web architecture will seek to foster a larger community-involved development and response that promotes more widespread use of software tools by the enterprises involved in manufacturing and related activities. At a functional level, such an architecture needs to also facilitate related entities (i.e., humans, services, resources) to adapt, modify and collaborate to achieve simple-to-complex manufacturing activities. Findings will be published in a peer-reviewed conference as well as other journal publications in order to engage the pertinent manufacturing and computer science communities. Findings will also be posted on the project website.
