2012 International Conference on Computer Science and Service System

Research on Knowledge Management for Group

Enterprise in Cloud Manufacturing
Yi-wen ZHANG

Ying JIN

School of Computer Science and Technology, Anhui

Department of Management of Hefei University,

University, Hefei Anhui 230039, China

Hefei Anhui 230601, China

School of Management, Hefei University of

Ldjinying@yahoo.com.cn

Technology, Heifei Anhui 230009, China

zywjing@yahoo.com.cn;

significant knowledge management models have been

promoted [6-7]. Knowledge management can maximize use of
resources inside enterprise and improve the design
manufacturing
capabilities,
and
knowledge-based
collaborative management platform is the basic guarantee to
implement cooperative design and manufacturing. However,
these studies are not a good solution to solve the sharing and
reuse of knowledge resource in cloud manufacturing,
additionally, the majority of enterprise information technology
is basically still in the decentralized, island-style application.
Knowledge is scattered in every corner of the enterprise and
in a disorder manage, the combination of knowledge
management and actual production is difficult. In this paper, a
preliminary study on knowledge management key problems in
cloud manufacturing service platform was done.

AbstractCloud manufacturing provides a new networked

manufacturing model for manufacturing industry. The
knowledge of group enterprise in cloud manufacturing is
distributed, polyphyletic, heterogeneous and dynamic. A model
framework of knowledge management system is put forward
based on the concept of knowledge as a service, which
implements the tacit knowledge and the explicit knowledge
sharing and reuse between the subjects in group enterprise.
Then, the key problems of knowledge management in cloud
manufacturing are discussed. Finally, a knowledge service
application prototype of cloud manufacturing based on case base
is presented.
Keywords: cloud manufacturing knowledge management
knowledge siteknowledge servicecase-based reasoning

I.

INTRODUCTION

II.

With the rapid development of internet technology,

enterprise manufacturing model has gone through the
development process of agile manufacturing, network
manufacturing and service-oriented manufacturing. It is
shown [1] that cloud computing provides a new network
application model for enterprise, we can build information
platform with very little operating costs quickly and
scientifically by using cloud service technology for
enterprises, which are not proficient in information technology.
Li [2] proposed a new service-oriented networked
manufacturing modelcloud manufacturing, it enriched and
expanded the range of resource sharing and service model in
cloud computing , promoted agile, service, green and
intelligence-oriented manufacturing development. No matter
what manufacturing model is adopt, enterprises should make
rational use of knowledge resources on manufacturing
network by sharing and reuse tacit knowledge and explicit
knowledge inside enterprise or among enterprises in order to
improve innovative capability and core competitive ability.
Knowledge management helps the effective sharing and reuse
of tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. Knowledge
management comprises a range of strategies and practices
used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute,
and enable adoption of insights and experiences. Such insights
and experiences comprise knowledge, either embodied in
individuals or embedded in organizational processes or
practice[3]. In recent years, knowledge management has
played an important role in enterprise [4-5], and some
978-0-7695-4719-0 2012
U.S. Government Work Not Protected by U.S. Copyright
DOI 10.1109/CSSS.2012.486

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN CLOUD

MANUFACTURING SERVICE PLATFORM

Cloud manufacturing is a new, networked and intelligent

manufacturing model that is service-oriented, knowledge
based, high performance and energy efficient. In this model,
state-of-the-art technologies such as networked manufacturing,
cloud computing, semantic web, and high-performance
computing are integrated in order to provide secure, reliable,
and high quality on-demand services at low prices for those
involved in the whole manufacturing life-cycle[8-9]. Cloud
computing is emerging as one of the major enablers for the
manufacturing industry. Cloud manufacturing is developed on
the basis of cloud computing, its enriched and expanded range
of resource sharing and service model in cloud computing,
which is the reason for development of cloud computing idea
in manufacturing industry. The key technologies of cloud
manufacturing service platform for group enterprise are
shown in Fig1.
As can be seen from Fig1, knowledge management is the
core of key technologies in cloud manufacturing. The aim of
cloud manufacturing is to maximize the use of resources and
design manufacturing capabilities inside enterprise or among
enterprises. The basic guarantee to achieve co-design and
manufacture of full life cycle is knowledge-based
collaborative management. Cloud manufacturing is a new
service-oriented, high efficiency, low consumption,
knowledge-based,
and
intelligent
networked
agile

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manufacturing model and technology with the goal to

promote manufacturing agile, service, green and
intelligent-oriented manufacturing development. Therefore, it
is the premise of various resources be shared largely when
knowledge is effective managed and used in cloud
manufacturing service platform. To study knowledge
management of the cloud manufacturing environment is
beneficial to realize resources services in intelligent search,
match and efficient management, and to provide intellectual
support for the manufacturing life-cycle process management
and key technologies of cloud manufacturing service
platform.

service-oriented, loosely coupled and scalable, and to

establish multi-source knowledge management service
platform for group enterprise in cloud manufacturing.

A. Knowledge management architecture in cloud

B. Analysis of key issues

manufacturing

1 Knowledge acquisition in cloud manufacturing

Compared with traditional knowledge management, group

enterprise knowledge in cloud manufacturing shows some
new features, such as diversity, interdisciplinary, dynamic and
incremental updating, etc. For these new features, this paper
discusses the establishment of the service-oriented knowledge
management system in cloud manufacturing, including
knowledge acquisition, case-based reasoning, semantic-based
knowledge retrieval, knowledge integration, dynamic
incremental updating and reasoning on demand, etc. The
architecture of knowledge management system in cloud
manufacturing is shown in Fig2, including six levels:
knowledge source layer, knowledge acquisition layer,
knowledge storage layer, knowledge retrieval layer,
knowledge innovation layer and knowledge publishing layer.

Knowledge acquisition in cloud manufacturing researches

how to acquire knowledge for the solution of a specific
problem from various heterogeneous distributed knowledge
sources, including static knowledge (such as document and
standard) and dynamic knowledge (such as assembly process
and design process). Knowledge acquisition processes include
knowledge extraction and knowledge representation, etc.
Ontology defines a common vocabulary for researchers who
need to share information in a domainit expresses knowledge
and knowledge structure of the field with the recognized
terminology sets and the relationships between them.
Knowledge extraction is to identify and extract knowledge
elements from knowledge source layer according to the given
domain ontology and to analyze corresponding knowledge
element, which is used to build the appropriate knowledge
base and case base. Knowledge element is the undivided
knowledge unit with complete knowledge representation,
including the conceptual knowledge element, the factual
knowledge element and the numerical knowledge element, etc.
Group enterprise has the characteristics of multi main body (a
subsidiary or independent sector), diversity and wide
geographical distribution. It executes parallel knowledge
extraction on the basis of domain ontology for improving the
efficiency of knowledge extraction. The results of extraction
are built to interdisciplinary knowledge base and case base,
and to be stored and represented in a uniform format.

Knowledge is multi-source and heterogeneous in cloud

manufacturing, which includes not only great explicit
knowledge as different kinds of business knowledge (such as
order, inventory and transaction registration), and production
processes and industry standards, and literature of science and
technology, etc, but also rich tacit knowledge, e.g. technical
manufacturing process, production and design experience,
rich field experience of experts, etc. Explicit knowledge
source was established by different organizations or
departments, which have the characteristics of distributed and
heterogeneous, even conflict or overlap in the semantic and
the content. Knowledge of group enterprise is
interdisciplinary and varied, and the process of change tacit
knowledge into explicit knowledge is extremely difficult, so it
need to implement the multi-source and heterogeneous
knowledge extraction and storage mechanism of

2Knowledge storage in cloud manufacturing

The realization of efficient knowledge storage for reliable
and effective knowledge service is ensured. Knowledge

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Cloud manufacturing service platform provides support

for manufacturing field interdisciplinary knowledge
integration, sharing and knowledge innovation, which can
help to improve the knowledge innovation and core
competitiveness. It is very difficult to implement knowledge
innovation in cloud manufacturing service platform because
the knowledge of group enterprise in cloud manufacturing is
distributed, polyphyletic, heterogeneous and has dynamic
characteristics. For this reason, we need to complete the
following tasks, establish distributed cross-disciplinary
knowledge integration model, formulate corresponding
integration rules and coordination mechanisms,research
efficient distributed interdisciplinary knowledge integration
algorithm[12], implement case-based reasoning, mixed
reasoning and demand-based reasoning integration
mechanism for a particular application of group enterprise in
cloud manufacturing on the basis of the integration
knowledgebase and the integration case base. Knowledge
integration is also a service in cloud manufacturing service
platform, where the main task is knowledge integration to
create a new knowledge object by transformation and
combination of distributed multi knowledge sources. When
knowledge element is change because of integration operation,
the system needs to update the knowledge element to keep the
consistency of the knowledge object. We can evaluate and
adjust the case weights by using intelligence algorithms (such
as GA and ANN), develop index mechanism base on vantage
case and extract hidden case knowledge by using dynamic
date mining technology, thus implementing knowledge
dynamic incremental updating.

storage is multivariate in cloud manufacturing for group

enterprise, traditional knowledge is stored as distributed
knowledge base, and successful manufacturing experience is
stored as case base. Group enterprise knowledge is difficult to
centralized storage because of its characteristics of multi main
body and distribution, but it can implement the uniform
management in cloud manufacturing. Based on distributed
two-level mirrored knowledge storage model in cloud
manufacturing service platform, to establish corresponding
knowledge site by using the main body own hardware and
software resources. Knowledge site is the set of knowledge
element. According to the characteristics of distributed
knowledge base in cloud manufacturing, knowledge site
extracts knowledge element and builds index from the main
body knowledge base and case base, thereby implementing
quick location and then to establish knowledge site library in
cloud manufacturing service platform. It is the index of
knowledge site, thus effectively improving the efficiency of
knowledge retrieval and reasoning. The distribute knowledge
storage structure is shown in Fig3.

3Knowledge retrieval in cloud manufacturing

Knowledge retrieval is a service in cloud manufacturing
service platform, two-level knowledge retrieval is used under
distributed resource environment, the framework is shown in
Fig4, including knowledge user interaction layer, semantic
analysis and site index layer and knowledge site knowledge
retrieval layer. Ontology-based information retrieval is a very
important research direction[10-11]. Through semantic
annotation for manufacturing resources on the basis of
domain ontology, we extract relevant knowledge (such as task
description, solutions and design experience, etc.) to form
structural index knowledge base, thereby building the
machine-understandable knowledge system, and improving
the accuracy of knowledge retrieval. The steps of knowledge
retrieval can be described as follows. Firstly, the following
steps should be followed, analyze the semantic with
knowledge needs of knowledge user, extract area
vocabulary and attribute set,match the knowledge site
library index,locate accurately knowledge site on the basis
of domain ontology. Secondly, implement knowledge retrieval
in corresponding knowledge site through Knowledge search
engine or CBR search engine based on domain knowledge
base or case base. Finally, return the results (as a web service)
to knowledge user through the interaction layer.

5 Knowledge publishing in cloud manufacturing

cloud manufacturing fully reflects the "Manufacturing as a
Service" concept knowledge as the core of cloud
manufacturing service platform should be as a service to the
knowledge user. Knowledge-as-a-Service (KaaS) is a new
knowledge application model that is the convergence of
knowledge and service, thus and further implementing
knowledge sharing and reuse. Knowledge service can meet
the needs of particular customer by analyzing and reasoning
the huge volumes of raw knowledge from intra- and
inter-businesses. Knowledge as a service integrates into cloud
manufacturing service platform in favor of knowledge sharing,

4Knowledge innovation in cloud manufacturing

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and reuse of full life cycle.

integration and innovation while knowledge user can get more

accurate and effective service. Knowledge service is a web
service process to solve knowledge needs and provide
solutions. To provide knowledge services in cloud
manufacturing full life-cycle, it helps open collaboration
between manufacturing resources and manufacturing sectors.
To implement high degree of sharing manufacturing resources
and demand-based knowledge service, it can promote
manufacturing agile, service, green and intelligent-oriented
manufacturing development.

8) Knowledge service visualization. Cloud terminal plays

a very important role in the intelligent environment of cloud
manufacturing service platform, end knowledge users need to
interact with cloud knowledge service anywhere, anytime.
Visualization is the key.
III.

CASE-BASED KNOWLEDGE SERVICE PROCESS

A prototype system of case-based knowledge management

in cloud manufacturing has been developed. CBR services
include case management module (such as add, delete, revise,
etc.), case retrieval module, expert yellow page module and so
on. Case-based Reasoning is the process of solving new
problems based on the solutions of similar past problems [13].
In this paper, case is defined as a six-tuple. Case=<SnoCon
ProDesInsWeig>. This includes: Sno is the sequence
number of knowledge site; Con is the set of domain concepts;
Pro is the set of case attributes; Des is the set of case
descriptions, and can be further expressed as,
Des={ IdentifierTitleCreatorDateAbstractPrecondition
MethodResult}Abstract is a summary, Preconditions is
prerequisite for the occurrence of case, Method is the
processing method, Result is the processing result; Ins is the
set of instances, and can be further expressed as, Ins={Inss
InstInsr}Inss is the instance set of case attributes, Inst is the
instance set of case characteristic properties, Insr is the
instance set of case relations; Weig is the set of attribute
weights, and can be further expressed as, Weig={ Weigs
Weigt}, Weigs is case attribute weights, Weigt is feature
attribute weights.

C. Characteristics of knowledge resource and knowledge

service
The characteristics of knowledge resource and knowledge
service in cloud manufacturing can be explained as follows.
1)
Knowledge resource virtualization. Cloud
manufacturing is based on cloud computing and virtualization
of software and hardware. To implement mass knowledge
distributed storage by virtualization technology in cloud
manufacturing service platform, it is transparent to knowledge
users, who are not concern for the concrete storage location.
2) Knowledge resource multi-source. Group enterprise
not only has the characteristics of multi main body and
diversity, but also covers a wide range of professional fields.
So the knowledge of group enterprise is interdisciplinary,
extensive, dynamic, multi-source and heterogeneous.
3) Knowledge resource service-oriented. Manufacturing
as a Service is the core idea of cloud manufacturing,
knowledge should be as a service to users who do not concern
for the concrete details of knowledge acquisition can obtain
knowledge service on demand.

Case similarity calculation should consider the following

two cases.

4) Knowledge resource sharing. Cloud manufacturing

service platform integrates the whole resources of group
enterprise into an enormous and super computer, realizing the
full sharing and coordination of computing resource, storage
resource, data resource, information, knowledge resource and
expert resource, etc.

When the property is symbolic feature, similarity can

be calculated as formula (1)

1

,




x i , y i is s y n o n y m o u s
f (x , y ) 
i
i

0

,



o t h er s

5) Knowledge resource explicating. Group manufacturing

enterprise has accumulated lots of experiences and cases in
the functioning of operation as designing, processing, testing,
maintaining and marketing, etc. Which include rich tacit
knowledge, it play an important role in the whole
manufacturing life-cycle. Tacit knowledge explicating
contributes to the improvement of manufacturing capacity and
the development of manufacturing toward intelligence.

The xi and yi is the number i symbolic feature of case

and case y respectively.

When the property is digital feature, similarity can be

calculated as formula (2)

1 2 arctan x j  y j
 Q ,




x j , y j is a real number

f (x , y ) 

j
j

1 2 arctan x jm  y jm  Q

,

x j , y j is interval number

6)
Knowledge service personalization. Cloud
manufacturing service platform provides personalized
knowledge services to meet the requirements of particular
users, contributes to reprocessing and re-development of
knowledge, and supplies business process according to user
behavior pattern at the same time.

The x jm and y jm is the middle value of the number j

x and case y respectively.

interval number of case

The overall case similarity can be calculated as formula (3)

sim ( x , y )  u Weigsi f ( xi , yi )  v Weigt j f ( x j , y j ) 3
i
j

7)
Knowledge
service
collaboration.
Cloud
manufacturing service platform provides support for the multi
body cooperative manufacturing, so that knowledge service
should provide knowledge exchange and knowledge
cooperation space support, and implement knowledge sharing

Where Weigsi  1 Weigt j  1 u and v are the

i

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adjustable parameters of case attribute and feature attribute,

and u  v  1 .

many problems to be solved about the technologies of

knowledge management in cloud manufacturing. In our future
work, we will focus on interdisciplinary multi-source field
knowledge integration knowledge service on-demand
auto-reasoning mechanisms and intelligent push technology in
cloud manufacturing.

Accepting the Map/Reduce distributed programming

mode[14], base on the distributed two-level mirrored
knowledge storage model (as shown in Fig3), and the process
of case-based knowledge service is shown in Fig5.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work was support by the General Research for
Humanities and Social Sciences Project of Chinese Ministry
of Education (No. 10YJC630398), the Educational
Commission of Anhui Province of China (No. KJ2011A006),
the Foundation for Young Talents in College of Anhui
Province of China (No. 2011SQRL019), the Research Fund of
Hefei University (No. 12KY06ZR) and the 211 Project of
Anhui University.
REFERENCES
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Knowledge service process can be depicted as follows

Step1. Input the knowledge needs by knowledge user. For
example, find the solution of the car engine leaks oil.
Step2. Execute semantic analysis by CBR retrieval engine,
and obtain some feature words, such as car, engine and
leak oil, the term car is case domain concept, engine is
the attribute instance of the car case, leak oil is a instance of
the feature attribute engine trouble .
Step3. Initialize attribute weights and accept the user's
correction.
Step4. Search knowledge site related to car theme in
knowledge site library, and then execute parallel Map
operation namely, send CBR retrieval task requests to
correlative knowledge site at the same time and execute
retrieval algorithm.
Step5. Perform parallel case retrieval in correlative
knowledge sites and sort by case similarity.
Step6. Perform Reduce operation, namely, merge the same
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knowledge management platform interaction layer in cloud
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Step7. View the case results by knowledge user, if
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go back to Step2.
Step8. Accept case revise or create a new case, and update
corresponding knowledge site.
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Cloud manufacturing is an extremely complex systems

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management system in cloud manufacturing is discussed and
the key techniques are analyzed. Furthermore, a case-based
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