The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 08, 2022
Filed:
Aug. 17, 2018
The Regents of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (US);
Kira Barton, Ann Arbor, MI (US);
Yikai Lin, Ann Arbor, MI (US);
Zhuoqing M. Mao, Ann Arbor, MI (US);
Dawn M. Tilbury, Ann Arbor, MI (US);
Efe Balta, Ann Arbor, MI (US);
THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, Ann Arbor, MI (US);
Abstract
Today, product developers with customized small batch production needs come across the problem of finding capable and flexible manufacturers, while manufacturers face underutilization due to inconsistent demand. In this disclosure, a digital manufacturing framework is presented to address the challenge of matching the underutilized manufacturers with the new product developers. This disclosure presents a Production as a Service (PaaS) framework to connect users (consumers or product developers) who have customized small batch manufacturing needs, with manufacturers that have existing underutilized resources. PaaS is a cloud-based, centralized framework based on a service oriented architecture (SOA) that abstracts the manufacturing steps of a product as individual (production) service requests. PaaS creates a market place for small-to-mid sized manufacturing industry by coordinating multiple manufacturers to provide the requested services. Using PaaS, the user is able to reach many capable manufacturers at once, and receive quotations for the production request. On the other end, PaaS reduces the effort required to find new customers and enables manufacturers to easily submit quotations to increase the utilization of their resources.