Advantages of Arrowhead Framework for the Machine Tooling Industry

Immersed in the digital era and fully experiencing the changes introduced by the new industrial revolution of the so-called Industry 4.0, there are still many aspects of industrial digitization to resolve. Interoperability among devices and machines is one of the challenges. Sensors, components and machines from different vendors work as independent silos offering large amounts of heterogeneous data which relational capabilities are not fully exploited. Quick development, deployment and testing of new software solutions that take advantage of those data is another important matter. The requirements in terms of equipment resources and engineering efforts is high when planning new implementations. Platforms that enable the efficient application of those solutions at the right level (machine, edge, plant or cloud) are also necessary. This paper presents an industrial case study on the application of the Arrowhead framework. The framework is implemented in the Machine Tooling ecosystem and enables the integration of grinding machines with other sensors, components or machines. Different software engineering tools offered with Arrowhead are used to design new solutions in Cyber-Physical System and Internet of Things in Industry 4.0 and make them Arrowhead compliant, for fast deployment of platforms and applications (Dockers) or for testing purposes (Management tool). Finally, the potential of agile construction of new applications is analysed by providing an Human-Machine Interface at machine level and the provision of services for data consumption at cloud level.