Workflow management for edge driven manufacturing systems

The fourth industrial revolution is one of digitization. As manufacturers build more digital equipment into their process harnessing the potential becomes a challenge. ISA 95 based manufacturers rely on top down decision making, with redundant flow of information in order to organize Workflows on the factory floor. With advances in edge computing and smart objects, more decision are made at lower levels of the infrastructure hierarchy. However, how can the MES tracking and execution functions be decentralized while maintain an organized collaboration of smart objects? This paper proposes a Cyber Physical Service Oriented System of Systems operating on edge computing. There are three systems proposed here; Smart Product, Workflow Manager and Workflow Executor. These systems operate within Arrowhead Local Clouds and create a fully autonomous set of system to complete a production order. Planning, Supply chain and Quality of Service monitoring are out of scope and remain as centralized activities. The Smart Product is the core Cyber Physical System that must be context-aware in order to pass the correct Workflow information to the Workflow System responsible for current activities.