Autor: Eckhard Hohwieler

Digitization of industrial production processes allows the introduction of datadriven business models using Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). To ensure efficient manufacturing, production systems must be able to communicate and interact with their environment, to monitor wear conditions, and to selfadapt their behavior to a given situation. This article gives an overview about the historical development of intelligent production systems with focus on condition monitoring and predictive maintenance in an availability oriented business model.

In the future, objects with embedded intelligence will be able to coordinate and steer the production sequence in a self-organizing production environment. Instead of existing central planning and control the new product-controlled manufacturing uses a multi-agent system with the possibilities of auctions and negotiation. The project “Self-organizing Production  SOPRO” implements autonomous micro systems and software agents to provide embedded intelligence on objects in production field.