A harmonized approach for constructing a robust and efficient technology backbone for agile manufacturing systems

To quickly satisfy customer needs and to respond to market changes it is eminent to develop agile manufacturing systems. These have to support integration of flexible and reconfigurable production systems as well as IT technologies across the entire value chain. While implementing advanced technologies or integrating these into new system solutions, manufacturers and system developers have to understand the current and the desired technological capabilities of the system application. Before constructing a robust technology backbone for agile manufacturing systems, it is therefore important to make a clear picture of existing standardized solutions. Though a vast variety of assessment techniques is presented in literature, it is still unclear which approach is appropriate for a technology gap analysis, especially when developing agile manufacturing system solutions. Therefore, the harmonization of assessment techniques is essential for the analysis of the technological compliance among various systems. This paper presents a harmonized approach with exemplary results in order to navigate system developers and stakeholders towards effective and robust technology solutions that are compliant with Industry 4.0 goals and independent of manufacturing application fields.