Connectivity as a prior challenge in establishing CPPS on basis of heterogeneous IT-software environments

More and more elements in a modern production system are becoming smart devices and it is reasonable to integrate them into a Cyber Physical Production System (CPPS) in a consistent manner. There is the broad goal of many industrial players to open the rich potential of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), which has to be fast, secure and adaptive. The growing number of "things" in a production system requires satisfying connectivity solutions that are different to an easy coming "Peer-to-Peer architecture (P2P)". The approach followed at the smartfactory@tugraz - the Learning Factory of Graz University of Technology in Austria - to achieve such an integration is to deploy an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), which is at the core of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). The goal is to integrate three main software applications including the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and the Management Execution System (MES). The additional challenge in this project is that these mentioned main applications are all provided by different suppliers. The selected SOA approach provides the basis for a scalable and extensible solution via Connectivity Modules and standardized interfaces. The smartfactory@tugraz validates this SOA approach by applying it to a real and fully operational manufacturing line. The smartfactory@tugraz is not only a learning factory but rather an open ecosystem by offering both students and researchers as well as industrial partners the ability to perform research on this subject. It is thus the ideal place to study the challenges and to understand the benefits of pushing a CPPS to a mature level in terms of connectivity in a manufacturing context.