Collaborative Networks and ICT Trends for Future CPPS and Beyond

Enterprises are forced to implement continuously new ICT architectures, devices and technologies to react in time to the demands of the market for high quality, individualized products. These demands can be fulfilled only by well-organized and operated networked production systems. Cyber Physical Production Systems (CPPS) represent this type of networks connecting their different components through collaborative networks (CN), using emerging technologies in a very flexible and efficient way. The paper gives a short overview on the trends of CN and CPPS as systems, than the Brain Computer Interface (BCI) is introduced as a new technology to control devices in CPPS. As a next step a new paradigm for future production systems, beyond the CPPS is presented; the biological transformation in manufacturing (BTM), where biology, IC and manufacturing technologies are merged. There are many open questions in reference to BTM that need to be answered by the manufacturing community.