Ontology-Driven Simulations for Quantified Service Discovery in Manufacturing Ecosystems

The recent disruptions in manufacturing value creation showed the fragility of currently dominating linear value chains. Transformation of manufacturing to a service-oriented approach is a promising solution to achieve resiliency and flexibility. Service-oriented production is enabled by the 'Manufacturing Service' approach, which is a core element of the Manufacturing-as-a-Service (MaaS) paradigm. In aMaaS enabled manufacturing ecosystem, consumers can avail manu-facturing services from providers, making the products transit across networked MaaS providers. Hence, an efficient decision support system is required for MaaS consumers, to ensure the viability of production in terms of cost, technology, and further requirements such as sustainability prior to ordering aMaaS from providers. This paper proposes a platform architecture for a MaaS enabled manufacturing ecosystem. Essential elements in the platform and a methodology to leverage simulation models backed by ontologies for automated quantified discovery of MaaS from providers are introduced. We anticipate that such a decision support system will boost the adoption of the MaaS paradigm. A case study is used to outline the applicability of our solution in a distributed manufacturing ecosystem.