SPECULATIONS ON THE MARKET EVOLUTION OF CLOUD MANUFACTURING

摘要

To address the latest challenges in the service-oriented manufacturing paradigm, cloud manufacturing is proposed for not just large-scale enterprises, but also small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Although enterprises acknowledge its technical merits, many of them hold then-actions until further proof. This paper studies specifically the market evolution of cloud manufacturing from an economic perspective. The anticipated development trend is presented based on game theory and equilibrium analysis. Three major stages, emerging, growing and maturing, are partitioned with interactions among cloud players, i.e. service provider, service consumer and service platform operator (INP). In each stage, both static and dynamic market behaviors are analyzed using classical economics models. Service providers and consumers with different levels of knowledge will act distinctly, this requires an INP to offer diverse strategies to match their profit expectations. The findings in this paper can help enterprises, particularly SMEs, to understand and evaluate their business strategies, and provide economic evidence that participating in shaping a "health" cloud manufacturing market is worthwhile.