Cloud-Based Intelligent User Interface for Cloud Manufacturing: Model, Technology, and Application

Cloud manufacturing is gradually transforming the way enterprises do business from traditional production-oriented manufacturing to service-oriented manufacturing. The development of cloud manufacturing in industry practice is closely related to domain-specific user experience. The huge amount of users with diverse roles and various requirements in manufacturing industry are facing great challenges of cloud system usability problems. Thus, user interface issues play a significant role in pushing this new area forward. In this paper, we discuss the key characteristics of intelligent user interface (IUI) for cloud manufacturing, i.e., naturality, smart mobility, self-configuration, and flexible customization. Further, a cloud-plus-IUI model for cloud end-users is presented. Then we discuss the enabling technologies, i.e., automatic configuration based on virtualization, context-aware adaption and recommendation, and multimodal interaction. Finally, we present SketchPart, a sketch-based pad system prototype for searching part drawings in the cloud, to show the advantages of the proposed cloud-plus-IUI solution.