Web technologies in support of virtual manufacturing environments

The development of distributed architectures and server-side component model for pervasive and safety-critical client-side manufacturing applications represents a very exciting challenge, particularly when the World Wide Web is used as a standard platform. On one hand, the component-based paradigm promises to enable software application development, integration, and deployment through assembly and distribution among decentralized servers across networks. On the other hand, the latest Web-based technologies, such as Web services, XML-based standards, and dynamic Web pages, provide powerful tools to enhance the overall efficiency of monitoring, operation, and control tasks for supporting smooth cross-organizational logistic manufacturing processes. This paper explores some of these recent technologies through the presentation of an experiment conducted with the aim of eventually realizing complex virtual manufacturing environments.