The Operating Models of Tomorrow Require New Control Concepts Today

Abstract

The growing number of product variation, unstable sales figures and the increasingly reduced lifecycle of products has lead to increasing flexibility requirements for the whole production process. Additionally, mechanical engineers pursue, against the background of the growing importance of services in the industrial sphere, the improvement of the existing supply of services in the direction of customer service. From an OEM viewpoint, it would be desirable to purchase the production as a service and to pay per produced unit. Beyond maintenance and upkeep, services emerge that grow into the core business of the system supplier. For the user, service, reliability and quality losses can be the consequence when the system supplier has a lacking or limited business experience. For the system supplier, as the operator of their system, the unrestricted availability and complete control over the reuse are the primary objectives. Once the net concepts and structures correspond to the modem requirements, then future operating models with suitable monitoring functions can be supported. It is necessary, that: The system, not the control system, is considered as the logical unit. A high flexibility through consequent use of TCP/IP and HTTP as a transportation and transfer protocol on the basis of Ethernet as net technology can be guaranteed. The communication of individual control units, sensors and actuators in a network based on switches with a quasi deterministic behaviour is allowed. Through internet-similar structures in the system, no additional programming costs for data communication and data synchronisation arise and secure, switched network hierarchies merge to a logical net layer, as a result the bottlenecks SPS-CPUs are cancelled.