Internet manufacturing (IMan)

The Internet is currently an under-exploited resource for engineering and manufacturing purposes. IMan aims to implement an infrastructure to shorten product development time and cost through the Internet. The remote control and utilization of manufacturing and prototyping facilities have been implemented to enable the sharing of resources. This infrastructure will enable the establishment of a design and manufacturing village in a global environment through the Internet. This will enable shared designs and manufacturing tools to be made available to industries, research institutions and educational institutions. IMan has been successfully applied by linking a Fused Deposition Modeling machine located in Temasek Polytechnic to the global community through the use of the Internet. Experiments with Indiana University have been carried out and various computer aided design (CAD) models have been successfully manufactured. The viability of the system via an international high-speed network has been demonstrated at the SuperComputing'98.