“The key to industrial cloud manufacturing is to make services run in the cloud, not only referring to software services such as memory and bandwidth, but also referring to hardware services such as robots and machine tools.”

Liu Yongkui, associate professor of Xidian University, said at the recently held 2023 Industrial Cloud Manufacturing Innovation Alliance Conference and cloud manufacturing core technology seminar. The conference was organized by Industrial Cloud Manufacturing Innovation Alliance and organized by Industrial Cloud Manufacturing (Sichuan) Innovation Center Co., LTD.

Liu Yongkui said that the service “runs” in the cloud, in fact, means that manufacturing resources are managed and deployed in the cloud, forming a dynamic and elastic state, so as to improve the efficiency of production. As Liu Gang, secretary general of the Industrial Cloud Manufacturing Innovation Alliance, mentioned in the meeting, industrial cloud manufacturing, as a new mode of production, breaks industry barriers and promotes industrial integration through cross-industry, cross-field and cross-regional collaborative innovation manufacturing network, which is the key support for realizing new industrialization.

In fact, industrial cloud manufacturing was proposed by the Chinese Academy of Engineering Li Bohu team as early as 2009, earlier than the industrial Internet, industry 4.0 and other more familiar concepts, but it seems that the awareness of the public is not high, in the enterprise landing also faces a lot of challenges.

“The key to cloud manufacturing is to let services run in the cloud”

In November last year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology approved the establishment of the national graphene Innovation Center, the national Virtual reality Innovation center, the national Ultra high-definition video innovation center and other three national manufacturing innovation centers, so far around 36 key construction areas, the national manufacturing innovation center has 26. According to the plan of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, it is planned to form about 40 national manufacturing innovation centers by 2025.

In Zhou’s view, the 26 national manufacturing innovation centers approved by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology are pragmatic. For example, optoelectronics, robots, gas turbines, etc., are very specific terms. Zhou Shuqin is a professor at the Industrial Cloud Manufacturing (Sichuan) Innovation Center Co., LTD., China’s first provincial innovation center in the field of industrial cloud manufacturing.

Industrial cloud manufacturing is also one of the 36 focus areas. Up to now, the national industrial cloud manufacturing innovation center has not been approved by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Zhou Shouqin believes that the key behind the industrial cloud manufacturing is to fall on a noun, fall on a specific thing, so what needs to be considered is what is the key common technology of industrial cloud manufacturing. “The key problem of the industry brings the demand of the industry, and finally sinks to the technology, which must be the key common technology, visible and tangible, quantifiable, with specific performance indicators.”

In order to understand the key common technologies of industrial cloud manufacturing, we must first understand the concept of industrial cloud manufacturing. In fact, as early as 2009, the team of Li Bohu, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, proposed this concept, which is different from the industrial Internet in the United States and Industry 4.0 in Germany, which is a concept with distinct Chinese characteristics. “Industrial cloud manufacturing is a solution for China to solve intelligent systems in the new industrial environment.” Southwest Petroleum University associate professor Guo Liang said at the scene.

In the view of Liu Yongkui, associate professor of Xidian University, the reason why the concept of cloud manufacturing is proposed is that China’s manufacturing resources are large and wide, and how to match resources to form shared collaboration. The second is that after the emergence of cloud computing, the industry considers whether computing can be migrated to manufacturing. “This is a very natural idea, but the difference between manufacturing and computing is too big, manufacturing is divided into scenarios, and different scenarios require different virtualization methods, so to understand cloud manufacturing from the perspective of cloud computing, and look at cloud manufacturing from the perspective of manufacturing.”

Liu Yongkui stressed that the key to cloud manufacturing is to let the service “run” in the cloud, not only refers to software services such as memory, bandwidth, but also refers to hardware services such as robots and machine tools, “hardware services are a difficult point, cloud manufacturing emphasizes the free combination between devices in the cloud in the form of services.”

Service is also a key word frequently mentioned by the guests, the core of cloud manufacturing is a service model, through the management and deployment of cloud resources to achieve a virtual cloud factory, serving the upper layer of manufacturing applications. “Compared with the industrial Internet, industrial cloud manufacturing focuses more on manufacturing resource services.” Said Ling Weiqing, a researcher at Tongji University.