Developing a vision for multi-site manufacturing system of systems

Multi-site manufacturing system of systems (SoS) are complex systems of geographically dispersed manufacturing organisations that self-organise in response to customers' needs, dissolving once these needs have been satisfied. This paper presents results from the EU FP7 project, Road2SoS, which has developed a roadmap of multi-site manufacturing SoS in order to explore the potential pathways to a future vision of a globally reconfigurable manufacturing SoS. The most important drivers, benefits, and challenges for the implementation of this vision are described, and the implications of these results for different manufacturing business models are explored. The work described in this paper has been mainly executed within the Road2SoS project which is funded by the European Commission grant agreement No. 288274.