Blueprints for architecture drivers and architecture solutions for Industry 4.0 shopfloor applications

Abstract

Industry 4.0 aims at evolving the current industrial processes towards directly connecting shopfloor machines to systems from different layers of the automation pyramid, such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES). There are key functional and quality requirements that apply to most Industry 4.0 systems independent of the application domain, e.g., requirements related to interoperability, recoverability, security, and modifiability. Despite their importance, there is still a lack of understanding of (i) architecture drivers that focus on these quality aspects and (ii) architecture solutions for these architecture drivers that are adequate for a wide range of Industry 4.0 contexts. To contribute to filling this gap, we present in this paper (i) quality-centered architecture drivers derived from industrial cases, and (ii) architecture solutions based on the concepts of Digital Twins, Service-Oriented Architecture, and Virtual Automation Bus for four recurrent production plant scenarios. The architecture drivers and solutions presented in this paper were instantiated in different Industry 4.0 contexts, such as BaSys 4.0 (the German national reference project for Industry 4.0), and by the BaSys industry project partners.