Software-Defined Manufacturing: Reference Architecture

Solving current challenges in the manufacturing industry, for example, ever-increasing productivity, growing un-certainty and flexibility, as well as the digitalization, requires a shift in paradigm of how industrial production is thought, engineered and implemented. Software-defined Manufacturing (SDM) replaces the production-system-centric approach by a production-solution-focused approach. Solutions are engineered virtually using software tools and defined by standardized model. The physical implementation of a software-defined solution is performed using services, that deploy the models on resources, representing available assets. The consistency between models and implementations of solutions enables continuous processes. SDM is an open ecosystem-based approach, combining key technologies, models and services. In this paper, a reference architecture for the SDM ecosystem is presented. Based on the definition of resources and solutions, the SDM-core is introduced connecting both. The core consists of data models and essential services, including asset management, orchestration and access management. The holistic architecture also includes human roles and external entities. The reference architecture is validated using representative use cases that were identified based on a large-scale use case study. The architecture is considered as a foundation for SDM and will be followed by a series of detailed publications regarding resources, technologies, use cases and applications.