Outcomes, Insights and Best Practices from IIC Testbeds: Smart Factory Web Testbed
I NTRODUCTION
In order to extend the usefulness of the published Testbeds in the Testbed Program of the
Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC), the Testbed Working Group has developed an initiative to
interview the contributors of selected testbeds to showcase more insights about the testbed,
including the lessons learned through the testbed development process. This initiative enables
the IIC to share more insights and inspire more members to engage in the Testbed Program.
This article highlights the Smart Factory Web Testbed. The information and insights described in
the following article were captured through an interview conducted by Mr. Joseph Fontaine, Vice
President of Testbed Programs at IIC, with Dr. Kym Watson, Principal Scientist and Deputy Head
of Department Information Management and Production Control at Fraunhofer IOSB. Kym is an
active member in the IIC where he has been serving as co-lead of the Smart Factory Web Testbed
and is a key contributor to the Testbed Working Group. Kym co-chairs the IIC Distributed Data
and Interoperability Management Task Group. In May 2018, Kym was recognized by his peers
and bestowed the IIC Testbed Award for his leadership and contribution to the Smart Factory
Web Testbed. His nomination indicated the importance of improving manufacturing order
fulfillment and cited Kym’s technical expertise, support and advancement of the smart
manufacturing activities within the IIC.
S MART F ACTORY W EB T ESTBED – F ROM C ONCEPT TO R EALITY
The Smart Factory Web Testbed aims to set
up a web-based platform to allow factories
to offer production capabilities and share
resources to improve order fulfillment in a
much more flexible way than is currently
possible with available technology. It seeks
to provide the technical basis for new
business models, especially for small lot
sizes, with flexible assignment of production
resources across factory locations. This
testbed is designed, in particular, to be a
step towards establishing a marketplace for
manufacturing where one can look for
factories with specific capabilities and assets
to meet production requirements. Factories
offering those capabilities can then register
to be located and participate in the
marketplace.
IIC Journal of Innovation
This requires up-to-date information about
the capabilities and status of assets in the
factory. The characteristics of the
products—availability, quality, price and so
on—provides a basis for possible negotiation
between competing offers.
For this application to work, international
standards such as OPC Unified Architecture
(OPC UA) and AutomationML are needed to
link factories into the Smart Factory Web in
order to provide information about the
factories in a standardized way. This
innovation enables production facilities to
offer their services in a global market
business and adapt their production in a very
efficient way. The Smart Factory Web
Testbed enables cross-site usage scenarios
with secure Plug & Work functions and data
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