Systematic Development of Smart Factory using CONSENS

Industry 4.0 is changing design and manufacturing methodologies because future production lines will manufacture customized products for the mass market. As for that, Automated machines and systems in such a production line need to communicate with each other. In this context, data exchange takes place between different kind of systems or platforms. Therefore a system level approach clarifying the interactions between the manufacturing devices in heterogeneous environments addressing highly dynamic and often loosely coupled production processes is required. This paper describes a model-based systems engineering approach of which the system integration of a smart factory is systematically managed right from the conception design phase. During the conception phase, the communication flows between the system elements is specified using CONSENS (Conceptual Design Specification Technique for the Engineering of Complex Systems). Based on the system level design specifications , a working prototype of a mini production line deploying Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) technology has been developed. The SCADA software acts as a human-machine interface and provides a gateway to access data of the production line either locally or through the internet. Multi-role users could access the system locally or remotely for monitoring, controlling, analyzing and ordering using SCADA as the interface.