Knowledge-Based Production Planning for Industry 4.0

Abstract

Today and tomorrow – in the era of Digital Production Environments and Industry 4.0 – the production planning and manufacturing of a new product takes place in various partial steps, mostly in different locations, potentially distributed all over the world. In this application context, a Collaborative Adaptive Production Process Planning can be supported by semantic product data management approaches enabling production-knowledge representation and management as well as knowledge sharing, access, and reuse in a flexible and efficient way. To support such scenarios, semantic representations of production-knowledge integrated into a machine-readable process formalization is a key enabling factor for sharing such explicit knowledge resources in cloud-based knowledge repositories. We will introduce such a method and provide a corresponding prototypical Proof-of-Concept implementation called Knowledge-Based Production Planning (KPP).

Furthermore, the ProSTEP iViP Association recently published a White Paper entitled “Modern Production Planning Processes” that is based on the currently emerging ISO/DIS 18828-2 Standard. This recommendation represents a formal end-to-end reference process that can be adapted to individual needs, the so-called Reference Planning Process (RPP).

In this chapter, we will explain KPP in detail. Further, as a basis for evaluation and validation, we use the KPP approach as a possible reference implementation of RPP. We will also demonstrate the usability and interoperability of the Proof-of-Concept implementation of KPP. This includes an integrated visually direct manipulative process editor. Moreover, we will illustrate the first prototype of the KPP Mediator Architecture including a user-friendly query library based on the KPP ontology.