Bachelor and Master Theses

Cloud computing is transforming the manufacturing industry and offering a range of services that can enhance productivity and sustainability in smart production plants. These services provide manufacturers with flexible and scalable solutions for their operational needs. The aim of this thesis is to develop and validate a cloud-based service framework for a smart production plant. The thesis starts with various cloud-based services identified in the literature and performs an interview/survey study with manufacturing companies to collect feedback. Based on this, the thesis will develop a cloud-based service framework.

The research is expected to address the following points:

• The key cloud-based services that manufacturers perceive as beneficial for smart production plants.
• The advantages and disadvantages of adopting these services.
• The factors influence manufacturers' decisions to adopt or reject specific cloud-based services across different levels of production (plant, production line, machine, and process).

The interview/survey study, which targets different manufacturers through online and in-person surveys as well as industry events, needs to be designed to cover the following areas:

• Demographics of participating manufacturers (size, industry, etc.), the current level of cloud adoption in their production plants, and their willingness to utilize such services.
• Familiarity with different categories of cloud-based services, benefits, and challenges of adopting specific services.
• Factors influencing decisions regarding cloud service adoption (cost, security, scalability, interoperability, etc.).

References:

• Al-Dulaimy A, Hatvani L, Behnam M, Fattouh A, Chirumalla K. An Overview of Cloud-Based Services for Smart Production Plants. InIFIP International Conference on Advances in Production Management Systems 2024 Sep 8 (pp. 461-475). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.

Master thesis.