A front-end system to support cloud-based manufacturing of customised products

In today’s global market, customized products are amongst an important means to address diverse customer demand and in achieving a unique competitive advantage. Key enablers of this approach are existing product configuration and supporting IT-based manufacturing systems. As a proposed advancement, it considered that the development of a front-end system with a next level of integration to a cloud-based manufacturing infrastructure is able to better support the specification and on-demand manufacture of customized products. In this paper, a new paradigm of Manufacturing-as-a-Service (MaaS) environment is introduced and highlights the current research challenges in the configuration of customizable products. Furthermore, the latest development of the front-end system is reported with a view towards further work in the research

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

Road2CPS priorities and recommendations for research and innovation in cyber-physical systems

This document summarises the findings of the Road2CPS project, co-financed by the European Commission under the H2020 Research and Innovation Programme, to develop a roadmap and recommendations for strategic action required for future deployment of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). The term Cyber-Physical System describes hardware-software systems, which tightly couple the physical world and the virtual world. They are established from networked embedded systems that are connected with the outside world through sensors and actuators and have the capability to collaborate, adapt, and evolve. In the ARTEMIS Strategic Research Agenda 2016, CPS are described as ‘Embedded Intelligent ICT Systems’ that make products smarter, more interconnected, interdependent, collaborative, and autonomous. In the future world of CPS, a huge number of devices connected to the physical world will be able to exchange data with each other, access web services, and interact with people. Moreover, information systems will sense, monitor and even control the physical world via Cyber-Physical Systems and the Internet of Things (HiPEAC Vision 2015). Cyber-Physical Systems find their application in many highly relevant areas to our society: multi-modal transport, health, smart factories, smart grids and smart cities amongst others. The deployment of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) is expected to increase substantially over the next decades, holding great potential for novel applications and innovative product development. Digital technologies have already pervaded day-to-day life massively, affecting all kinds of interactions between humans and their environment. However, the inherent complexity of CPSs, as well as the need to meet optimised performance and comply with essential requirements like safety, privacy, security, raises many questions that are currently being explored by the research community. Road2CPS aims at accelerating uptake and implementation of these efforts. The Road2CPS project identifying and analysing the relevant technology fields and related research priorities to fuel the development of trustworthy CPS, as well as the specific technologies, needs and barriers for a successful implementation in different application domains and to derive recommendations for strategic action. The document at hand was established through an interactive, community-based approach, involving over 300 experts from academia, industry and policy making through a series of workshops and consultations. Visions and priorities of recently produced roadmaps in the area of CPS, IoT (Internet of Things), SoS (System-of-Systems) and FoF (Factories of the Future) were discussed, complemented by sharing views and perspectives on CPS implementation in application domains, evolving multi-sided eco-systems as well as business and policy related barriers, enablers and success factors. From the workshops and accompanying activities recommendations for future research and innovation activities were derived and topics and timelines for their implementation proposed. Amongst the technological topics, and related future research priorities ‘integration, interoperability, standards’ ranged highest in all workshops. The topic is connected to digital platforms and reference architectures, which have already become a key priority theme for the EC and their Digitisation Strategy as well as the work on the right standards to help successful implementation of CPSs. Other themes of very high technology/research relevance revealed to be ‘modelling and simulation’, ‘safety and dependability’, ‘security and privacy’, ‘big data and real-time analysis’, ‘ubiquitous autonomy and forecasting’ as well as ‘HMI/human machine awareness’. Next to this, themes emerged including ‘decision making and support’, ‘CPS engineering (requirements, design)’, ‘CPS life-cycle management’, ‘System-of-Systems’, ‘distributed management’, ‘cognitive CPS’, ‘emergence, complexity, adaptability and flexibility’ and work on the foundations of CPS and ‘cross-disciplinary research/CPS Science’

Method to configure agile production networks for personalised products based on customisable manufacturing services

The increasing demand for individualised products, as well as rising product complexity, are challenging while managing production networks. To counter this, it is necessary to efficiently configure agile production networks while reducing the necessary know-how at the same time. This thesis proposes an IT-based method for connecting customisable manufacturing services to do so. First, this includes the provision of manufacturing services by manufacturers publishing service descriptions on a common platform. These services can then be selected, configured, and connected to establish agile production networks. While configuring the networks, potential dependencies between the combined manufacturing services and their properties must be considered. To support this, the developed system provides recommendations derived from previously-defined connections between manufacturing services

The challenge of networked enterprises for cloud computing interoperability

Manufacturing enterprises have to organize themselves into effective system architectures forming different types of Networked Enterprises (NE) to match fast changing market demands. Cloud Computing (CC) is an important up to date computing concept for NE, as it offers significant financial and technical advantages beside high-level collaboration possibilities. As cloud computing is a new concept the solutions for handling interoperability, portability, security, privacy and standardization challenges have not been solved fully yet. The paper introduces the main characteristics of future Internet-based enterprises and the different CC models. An overview is given on interoperability and actual standardization issues in CC environments. A taxonomy on possible connecting forms of networked enterprises and cloud-based IT systems with reference on interoperability is introduced, parallel presenting four use cases as well. Finally, an example of connecting cloud and NE is presented as an effective application of cloud computing in manufacturing industry

Using manufacturing service descriptions for flexible integration of production facilities to manufacturing clouds

Due to rapidly changing market needs and an increasing demand for customisable products, an upgrade in the flexibility of supply chain integration throughout production networks is an essential need for future manufacturing environments. Based on the ideas of cloud manufacturing and Manufacturing-as-a-Service, this paper shows an approach on how to interconnect factory-IT systems in flexible production networks by means of extraction and request of manufacturing services, requirements on manufacturing service descriptions which are to be used therefore, and a suggestion for an appropriate service description syntax which includes technical and product related contents as well as business and logistics information

Chapter 33: Manufacturing Execution Systems for Micro-manufacturing

This chapter aims to deliver insights into concepts, standards, and technologies used to implement the production-related information technology (IT) environment for micro-/nano-manufacturing. The first section provides a general overview of the production IT landscape. It explains important terms, architecture layers, and corresponding systems and their scope. In the second section, the scope is narrowed to the manufacturing execution systems, which are investigated in more detail. The third section briefly reviews approaches to implement the concepts discussed earlier. The last section closes the chapter with some considerations on relevant standardization work

Requirements and concept for a manufacturing service management and execution platform for customizable products

Cloud manufacturing provides solutions for a number of tasks concerning the integration of manufacturing resources and production networks. Through it, new possibilities also arise for increasing product individualization. The paper describes how cloud manufacturing concepts allow an Internet marketplace to be established for flexible manufacturing services, which can be used to provide customized products. To do this, first of all use cases related to an appropriate IT infrastructure are analyzed with special regard to the management of manufacturing services which are used to represent manufacturing resources from a technical, financial, logistical, and contractual perspective. Furthermore, requirements on the platform which have to be fulfilled during execution of manufacturing services in a manufacturing cloud are explained and concepts and an architecture for realization of both are described

System-of-system approaches and challenges for multi-site manufacturing

In the multi-site manufacturing domain, systems-of-systems (SoS) are rarely called so. However, there exist a number of collaborative manufacturing paradigms which closely relate to system-of-system principles. These include distributed manufacturing, dispersed network manufacturing, virtual enterprises and cloud manufacturing/manufacturing-as-a-service. This paper provides an overview of these terms and paradigms, exploring their characteristics, overlaps and differences. These manufacturing paradigms are then considered in relation to five key system-of-systems characteristics: autonomy, belonging, connectivity, diversity and emergence. Data collected from two surveys of academic and industry experts is presented and discussed, with key challenges and barriers to multi-site manufacturing SoS identified