IoT Platforms for the Internet of Production

Digital platforms act as mediator for many types of transactions and processes in various areas in business life. Especially, Internet of Things (IoT) platforms find increased use within companies. Still, the allocation of computation workload between a platform and existing information systems is not clear. At the same time, companies have no guideline, which platform to choose to facilitate intracompany optimizations. The platforms in the market are not fully designed or tailored for meeting the special needs of companies especially in the manufacturing industry. To tackle these challenges, this paper first gives an overview of the Internet of Production (IoP) reference framework. In that context, it second investigates 212 IoT platforms in the market and then chooses the best options by stepwise narrowing down their number. Following, those selected platforms are described in detail. Additionally, the article provides a comparison of selected IoT platforms, which then creates the general framework of a platform especially designed for the manufacturing industry in terms of its features and functionalities. This reference platform architecture is developed for reaching the potential of the IoP. This general framework and the representative reference architecture can help companies and software vendors to implement the IoP reference architecture by creating an IoT platform, which fits its needs.