Engineering of service-oriented automation systems: a survey

The evolution of manufacturing systems and the emergence of decentralised control require flexibility at various levels of their lifecycle. New emerging methods, such as multi-agent and service-oriented systems are major research topics in the sense of revitalizing the traditional production procedures. This paper takes an overview of the serviceoriented approach in terms of platform and engineering tools, from the perspective of automation and production systems. From the basic foundation to the more complex interactions, service-oriented architectures and its implementation in form of web services provide diverse and quality proved features that are welcome to different states of the production systems’ life-cycle. Key elements are the concepts of modelling and collaboration, which enhance the automatic binding and synchronisation of individual low-value services to more complex and meaningful structures. Such interactions can be specified by Petri nets, a mathematically well founded tool with features that enhance towards the modelling of systems. The right application of different methodologies together should motivate the development of service-oriented manufacturing systems that embrace the vision of collaborative automation.The authors would like to thank the European Commission and the partners of Network of Excellence “Innovative Production Machines and Systems” (http://www.iproms.org/) and the SOCRADES project (http://www.socrades.eu) for their support.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Engineering of service-oriented automation systems: a survey

The evolution of manufacturing systems and the emergence of decentralised control require flexibility at various levels of their lifecycle. New emerging methods, such as multi-agent and service-oriented systems are major research topics in the sense of revitalizing the traditional production procedures. This paper takes an overview of the serviceoriented approach in terms of platform and engineering tools, from the perspective of automation and production systems. From the basic foundation to the more complex interactions, service-oriented architectures and its implementation in form of web services provide diverse and quality proved features that are welcome to different states of the production systems’ life-cycle. Key elements are the concepts of modelling and collaboration, which enhance the automatic binding and synchronisation of individual low-value services to more complex and meaningful structures. Such interactions can be specified by Petri nets, a mathematically well founded tool with features that enhance towards the modelling of systems. The right application of different methodologies together should motivate the development of service-oriented manufacturing systems that embrace the vision of collaborative automation.The authors would like to thank the European Commission and the partners of Network of Excellence “Innovative Production Machines and Systems” (http://www.iproms.org/) and the SOCRADES project (http://www.socrades.eu) for their support.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Cloud-based manufacturing-as-a-service environment for customized products

This paper describes the paradigm of cloud-based services which are used to envisage a new generation of configurable manufacturing systems. Unlike previous approaches to mass customization (that simply reprogram individual machines to produce specific shapes) the system reported here is intended to enable the customized production of technologically complex products by dynamically configuring a manufacturing supply chain. In order to realize such a system, the resources (i.e. production capabilities) have to be designed to support collaboration throughout the whole production network, including their adaption to customer-specific production. The flexible service composition as well as the appropriate IT services required for its realization show many analogies with common cloud computing approaches. For this reason, this paper describes the motivation and challenges that are related to cloud-based manufacturing and illustrates emerging technologies supporting this vision byestablishing an appropriate Manufacturing-as-a-Service environment based on manufacturing service descriptions

Innovation for a circular economy : exploring the adoption of PSS by UK companies in the baby products sector

Several authors have commented on the relatively slow rate at which Product Service Systems (PSS) have been adopted in B2B networks. Despite some prominent examples, such as the provision of integrated lighting systems to Sainsbury’s (supermarket chain) by Parkersell in the UK, and the ‘pay per copy’ (lease and take back) systems provided by copier companies such as Xerox and Canon, PSS has not been widely adopted even though the business case seems sound. Consequently, the question of identifying and overcoming barriers to PSS adoption has become an important research topic. In this study we explore barriers to the adoption of PSS in the UK baby products industry using a qualitative research design employing in-depth interviews with baby products suppliers (manufacturers) and buyers (retailers). The novelty of the approach adopted in this study is that key concepts from the Industrial Networks Approach are used to frame the analysis. Buyers and suppliers of baby products acknowledge the value of the PSS approach, but PSS adoption is found to require considerable adaptation to conventional patterns of inter-organizational interaction

Eco‐Holonic 4.0 Circular Business Model to Conceptualize Sustainable Value Chain Towards Digital Transition

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize a circular business model based on an Eco-Holonic Architecture, through the integration of circular economy and holonic principles. A conceptual model is developed to manage the complexity of integrating circular economy principles, digital transformation, and tools and frameworks for sustainability into business models. The proposed architecture is multilevel and multiscale in order to achieve the instantiation of the sustainable value chain in any territory. The architecture promotes the incorporation of circular economy and holonic principles into new circular business models. This integrated perspective of business model can support the design and upgrade of the manufacturing companies in their respective industrial sectors. The conceptual model proposed is based on activity theory that considers the interactions between technical and social systems and allows the mitigation of the metabolic rift that exists between natural and social metabolism. This study contributes to the existing literature on circular economy, circular business models and activity theory by considering holonic paradigm concerns, which have not been explored yet. This research also offers a unique holonic architecture of circular business model by considering different levels, relationships, dynamism and contextualization (territory) aspects

Multi-agent framework based on smart sensors/actuators for machine tools control and monitoring

Throughout the history, the evolutions of the requirements for manufacturing equipments have depended on the changes in the customers' demands. Among the present trends in the requirements for new manufacturing equipments, there are more flexible and more reactive machines. In order to satisfy those requirements, this paper proposes a control and monitoring framework for machine tools based on smart sensor, on smart actuator and on agent concepts. The proposed control and monitoring framework achieves machine monitoring, process monitoring and adapting functions that are not usually provided by machine tool control systems. The proposed control and monitoring framework has been evaluated by the means of a simulated operative part of a machine tool. The communication between the agents is achieved thanks to an Ethernet network and CORBA protocol. The experiments (with and without cooperation between agents for accommodating) give encouraging results for implementing the proposed control framework to operational machines. Also, the cooperation between the agents of control and monitoring framework contributes to the improvement of reactivity by adapting cutting parameters to the machine and process states and to increase productivity

Survey on Additive Manufacturing, Cloud 3D Printing and Services

Cloud Manufacturing (CM) is the concept of using manufacturing resources in a service oriented way over the Internet. Recent developments in Additive Manufacturing (AM) are making it possible to utilise resources ad-hoc as replacement for traditional manufacturing resources in case of spontaneous problems in the established manufacturing processes. In order to be of use in these scenarios the AM resources must adhere to a strict principle of transparency and service composition in adherence to the Cloud Computing (CC) paradigm. With this review we provide an overview over CM, AM and relevant domains as well as present the historical development of scientific research in these fields, starting from 2002. Part of this work is also a meta-review on the domain to further detail its development and structure