The essential elements of intelligent Manufacturing System Architecture

Currently, the fusion trend of information and communication technology as well as operation technology is reshaping the manufacturing mode all over the world. In China, intelligent manufacturing is proposed as one of the five most important projects of China Manufacturing 2025 to tackle the challenges of such fusion. In order to deliver common understanding of intelligent manufacturing in China, an Intelligent Manufacturing System Architecture (IMSA) is published on December 30th, 2015, composed by three dimensions, namely, lifecycle, system hierarchy, and intelligent functions. In particular, lifecycle refers to the chain integration consisting of a series of mutually connected value creation activities such as design, production, logistics, sales and service. System hierarchy is composed of equipment level, control level, workshop level, enterprise level and cooperation level from the lower to the upper. Cooperation represents the cooperated activities through the value chain. While intelligent functions includes resources elements, system integration, interconnection, information fusion and new business pattern. In this paper, the authors illustrate the essential elements of IMSA and present several use cases covering both process and discrete manufacturing.