I-Corps: A Platform for Matching Manufacturing Service Companies with Design Enterprises

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to efficiently match, using intelligent multi-agent software, original equipment designers to manufacturers who have the necessary capabilities to fulfill those needed services. On one side, the solution directly empowers small and medium scale manufacturers to advertise unused machine capacity that can be rented out to clients who require small lot production of components. The platform may also provide them the ability to focus their business development efforts to obtaining short term and long term contracts through the broker system. On the other end of the solution, the platform directly impacts system integrators by providing them with a near real-time state of suppliers' performance and technical metrics. The solution architecture also allows enterprise customers to update their supplier databases in near real-time states without manual recurrent processing of supply chain information. The solution intends to make supplier sourcing, vetting and selection to be more efficient. Ultimately, the system intends to cut the time between product conception to production and delivery.This I-Corps project is based on the functions and operations of a manufacturing service selection platform. Real-time streaming data from machines on a factory floor populates a virtual digital twin representation of the physical machine and its corresponding factory model in cyberspace. Utilizing a multi-agent simulation software algorithm, we match design and manufacturing features of a given product to manufacturers who have the capacity and capabilities to meet those requirements. The results of the simulation provide an intelligent decision making tool for original equipment designers to source suppliers who are best suited to meet both business and technical requirements. This digital connectivity of machine assets across job/contract shop factories provides unprecedented visibility into machine capabilities and capacities within the supply chain for real-time decision making in supplier sourcing and selection.