Design science as methodological approach to interoperability engineering in digital production

Abstract

Interoperability is considered crucial for sustainable digitization of organizations. Interoperability Engineering captures organizational, semantic and technological aspects of production process components, and combines them for operation. In this paper, we present an adaptable methodological development framework stemming from Design Science. It can be used along structured value chains in digital production for aligning various production process components for operation. We demonstrate its applicability for Additive Manufacturing (AM) and its capability to settle organizational, semantic, and technological aspects in the course of a digital production. AM starts with organizational goal setting and structuring requirements for an envisioned solution, which becomes part of an AM project contract. All pre- and post-fabrication steps are framed by design science stages. Their order help structuring interoperability aspects and enable stepwise addressing them along iterative development cycles. Due its openness, the proposed framework can be adapted to various industrial settings.