Cyber-physical Systems as Part of Frugal Manufacturing Systems

Abstract

Emerging Markets are rapidly growing. Manufacturing systems in these markets are often exposed to harsh conditions e.g. climate, infrastructure, lack of knowledge. Furthermore, customers are very price sensitive and value-conscious. Consequently, providers of manufacturing systems in developed countries who are localized far from the market face tremendous challenges. The integration of cyber-physical systems (CPS) in manufacturing systems can help to solve these issues. Firstly, the identification of the required price-performance level and the corresponding functionality is supported. Secondly, CPS enhance the satisfaction of the price-performance requirements. Furthermore, they facilitate a user-friendly human-machine interaction, which enables low-qualified users to utilize the complete machine functionality. Therefore, this paper elaborates the potential benefits of the integration of CPS in frugal manufacturing systems. An exemplary use case demonstrates how CPS can ensure a higher usability in the context of human-machine interaction and empower low-qualified workers to use complex manufacturing systems.