Manufacturing Execution System Integration through the Standardization of a Common Service Model for Cyber-Physical Production Systems

Borbála Háy,Gianfranco Pedone,Richárd Beregi,József Váncza

doi:10.3390/app11167581

Abstract

Digital transformation and artificial intelligence are creating an opportunity for innovation across all levels of industry and are transforming the world of work by enabling factories to embrace cutting edge Information Technologies (ITs) into their manufacturing processes. Manufacturing Execution Systems (MESs) are abandoning their traditional role of legacy executing middle-ware for embracing the much wider vision of functional interoperability enablers among autonomous, distributed, and collaborative Cyber-Physical Production System (CPPS). In this paper, we propose a basic methodology for universally modeling, digitalizing, and integrating services offered by a variety of isolated workcells into a single, standardized, and augmented production system. The result is a reliable, reconfigurable, and interoperable manufacturing architecture, which privileges Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture (OPC UA) and its rich possibilities for information modeling at a higher level of the common service interoperability, along with Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) lightweight protocols at lower levels of data exchange. The proposed MES architecture has been demonstrated and validated in several use-cases at a research manufacturing laboratory of excellence for industrial testbeds.

Highlights

There is beauty in how complex the human body is, yet seemingly how naturally and effortlessly it operates day-to-day
We propose a basic methodology for universally modeling, digitalizing, and integrating services offered by a variety of isolated workcells into a single, standardized, and augmented production system
Industry 4.0, or in general generation of smart factory developments, will require an unprecedented level of interoperability and standardization, with the intent to facilitate the collaboration of connected cyber-physical entities

Summary

Introduction

There is beauty in how complex the human body is, yet seemingly how naturally and effortlessly it operates day-to-day. The aim was to take out every intelligent and decision-making aspects of MES to create a nervous system for manufacturing, which connects both low-level resources and their operations together, in addition to linking them to the high-level orchestrators, like a scheduler or an Enterprise Resource Planner (ERP). This approach operates with the expectation that both low- and high-level components have built-in intelligence to enable smart production through the digitalization of their environment. The basis for this expectation is the raising phenomena of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) in the manufacturing shop-floor and the spread of generally accepted distributed decision-making supporting the Cyber-Physical Production System (CPPS) concept [3,4]

Objectives

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion