Realising next-generation web service-driven industrial systems

Business continuity and agility form the core modus operandi of modern global enterprises. Complex business processes performed in highly distributed production systems need to be efficiently integrated with the shop floor, which needs to be able to fully respond to dynamic adaptations and sophisticated interactions with the enterprise systems in a timely manner. As the new generation of industrial devices coming to the shop floors features greatly improved storage, computing and networking capabilities, the factory of the future transforms itself to a system of systems, where of large numbers of heterogeneous networked embedded devices dynamically exchange information, complement each other’s functionality and provide new innovative capabilities that satisfy the emergent dynamic business requirements. This new breed of networked embedded devices goes beyond simple passive roles, e.g. being able to store and report information about themselves and their physical surroundings once queried, but execute complex computations and global logic locally, as well as dynamically adapt to fulfil goal-driven conditions. They communicate in an open interoperable way, form cooperative peer-to-peer networks and strongly interact with enterprise systems. This leads to highly modular, manageable and dynamic factories that will be able to adapt and optimize their behaviour to achieve the business goals pursued in a cross-layer collaborative way.