A practical resource-searching method for manufacturing grid

Manufacturing grid has become more and more popular because it can realize the resource share and collaboration within the worldwide scope. In most cases, the resource and task information in manufacturing grid is fuzzy and uncertain, but the resource-searching methods now are focused on deterministic value and have some limitations for manufacturing grid. This paper proposes a unified information model in which the information parameters are described as a set of interval values, and the conversion rules from the given capability parameters into intervals are discussed. On these bases, a new optimized resource-searching method is designed to find the best required manufacturing resource for the task by calculating the interval distance of the task and the resources. The method is verified to be effective by an instance. Furthermore, it is practical by comparing it with other resource-searching methods.