PCFF: Plug & Control for flexible transport equipment based on AutomationML

'Industrie 4.0' summarizes ideas, technologies, and methods to equip production resources, processes, and methods for future. One challenge is to deal with the growing amount of individualization of products [1]. Today modern production processes are monitored and controlled via process control systems or additional MES (Manufacturing Execution Systems. This results in a significant amount of engineering effort for these systems. Engineering is a creative process which involves many engineers, their knowledge, and experience. At the moment this complex activity is done manually and often results in high costs and a number of errors. Goal of the research project 'PCFF' of GEBHARDT Fördertechnik GmbH, cjt Systemsoftware AG, Fraunhofer IOSB, and KIT/IFL is to step towards 'Industry 4.0' in this context. The project started in 2013, ends in 2015, and is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) (FKZ KF2074712KM2). The present paper discusses the basic concept and architecture and highlights first project results.