NIST/OAGi Workshop: Drilling down on Smart Manufacturing -- Enabling Composable Apps

One of the most exciting new capabilities in Smart Manufacturing (SM) and Cyber-Physical Production Systems (CPPS) is the provisioning of manufacturing services as unbundled "apps," which could be significantly more flexible and less expensive to use than the current generation of monolithic manufacturing applications. However, bundling and integrating heterogeneous services in the form of apps is not a trivial job. There is a need for service vendors, cloud vendors, manufacturers, and other stakeholders to work collaboratively to simplify the effort to "mix-and-match" and assemble the apps. 

Call for participation:

This workshop is the second in the series of smart manufacturing workshops organized by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Open Applications Group Inc. (OAGi) to address technology and standards needs for easier discovery and easier integration of services based on improved interoperability and composability. Joining the organizers this year is the SM & CPPS Special Interest Group (SIG), recently established under the International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP) WG 5.7, Advances in Production Management Systems.

At the previous Open Cloud Architecture for Smart Manufacturing workshop, the attendees recognized that open cloud service ecosystems provide a promising new platform to advance innovations in manufacturing production and supply chain management. Yet, they also identified and prioritized a number of standards and technology issues that hinder the adoption of the new innovation platform. Participants indicated the need to close the gaps and overlaps among standards, and the need to simplify and assist in the use of standards and SM technologies, as top issues.

This year's workshop initiates work to address the identified top issues within five working sessions. The first three working sessions are focused on the analysis, methods, and tools to address those top issues. The sessions include SM model-based standards development, Standards capability analysis for SM, and SM systems characterization. The other two sessions look into realizing the innovation platform. The sessions include SM apps and service marketplaces and Crowdsourcing of manufacturing knowledge. Please see below for more details on the planned working sessions.

The workshop will consist of an opening plenary where the session chairs present objectives and planned work for their sessions, parallel working sessions where the participants present and discuss their position statements, and a closing plenary where the session chairs present the results from the breakout sessions. Each session will have its specific objectives and an agenda that will be formulated and announced shortly by the session chairs. Please direct your interests and session-specific questions to the respective session chairs indicated below.

Interested professionals and researchers are invited to submit short statements including their positions on these workshop topics, contribute their vision, and share technical insights. Please contact the session chairs and copy the workshop chairs, indicating your intention to participate and/or submit your position statements.The results from the workshop will be published as a compendium of reports from working sessions as contributed by session chairs.

Workshop Sessions:

Session chairs and general descriptions are provided below. Planned work and objectives will follow.

SM model-based standards development: Chairs – nivezic [at] nist.gov (Dr. Nenad Ivezic), NIST and serm [at] nist.gov (Dr. Serm Kulvatunyou), NIST. The session is seeking to advance the methodology for messaging standards (e.g., OAGIS) development and usage. The vision of the group is to develop a method and tools that drive more effective and easier-to-use messaging standards.

SM systems characterization: Chairs – hcho [at] postech.ac.kr (Dr. Hyunbo Cho), POSTECH Korea and dnbrandl [at] brlconsulting.com (Dennis Brandl), MESA/BR&L Consulting. The session is focused on classification of SM technologies. The vision of the group is to come up with a method for assessing a manufacturing system and recommending SM technologies and standards for adoption by manufacturers.

SM standards capability analysis: Chairs – yan.lu [at] nist.gov (Dr. Yan Lu), NIST and nollerd [at] us.ibm.com (Dave Noller), IBM. This session is intended to bring standards developers, technology providers and manufacturers together to discusses needs, opportunities and challenges for standards relevant to SM in order to accelerate smart manufacturing technology adoptions.

SM apps and service marketplaces: Chairs – jdavis [at] oit.ucla.edu (Dr. Jim Davis), SMLC/UCLA and thwuest [at] mail.wvu.edu (Dr. Thorsen Wuest). In this session, the potential of SM apps and service marketplaces will be explored. The aim is to work towards shared, secure, open-access infrastructure rich in functionality for easier systems integration and composability and a marketplace that can drive technological capability beyond just products by integrating services on standards, uncertainty quantification, benchmarking, performance-use metrics, systems modeling, and many more. A special focus will be on current technological and other challenges as well as requirements from the stakeholders' (e.g., designers, providers & users) perspectives.

Crowdsourcing of manufacturing knowledge: Chairs – ameri [at] txstate.edu (Dr. Farhad Ameri), Texas State, william.bernstein [at] nist.gov (Dr. Bill Bernstein), NIST. The session addresses how knowledge of "the crowd" can be leveraged to capture knowledge about smart manufacturing practices and resources. The aim is to create a vision for an SM knowledge base to assist small-and-medium-size manufacturers on their production management problems by understanding some of the fundamental challenges to such an undertaking.

Planned Workshop Format:

• Model-based Messaging Standard
• Monday - Bldg. 220/Room B321
• Tuesday - Bldg. 220/Room A112
• Standard Capability Analysis
• Monday - Bldg 220/Room B105
• Tuesday - Bldg. 220/Room B105
• SMS Characterization
• Monday - Bldg. 101/Portrait Room
• Tuesday - Bldg. 101/ Portrait Room
• SM Marketplace
• Monday - Bldg. 227/Room A202
• Tuesday - Bldg. 227/Room 302
• Crowdsourcing of Manufacturing Knowledge
• Monday - Bldg. 101/Lecture Room F
• Tuesday - Bldg. 224/Room B245

Workshop Timeline:

• 15 January - Workshop Call for Participation distributed
• 15 March – Position Statements received from participants
• 5 April – Slides received from presenters
• 10 April – Session Chairs presentations distributed
• 18-19 April – Workshop held

Presentation slides from the Opening Plenary. Click the link here to download the zip archive, which includes all opening presentations listed below:

• Workshop Overview
• Model-Based Messaging Standards
• SMS Characterization
• Standards Capability Analysis
• SM Marketplace
• Crowdsourcing of Manufacturing Knowledge

Presentation slides from break-out sessions. Click each link below to download the zip archive which includes all submissions for the session:

• Model-Based Messaging Standards
• SMS Characterization
• Standards Capability Analysis
• SM Marketplace
• Crowdsourcing of Manufacturing Knowledge

Presentation slides from the Closing Plenary. Click the link here to download the zip archive, which includes all closing presentations listed below:

• Introduction to IMS Program
• Model-Based Messaging Standards
• SMS Characterization
• Standards Capability Analysis
• SM Marketplace
• Crowdsourcing of Manufacturing Knowledge
• Workshop Conclusion

Click the link here to download the zip archive of the Industrie 4.0 Seminar by Prof. Thoben. The archive includes the slides and recording from the seminar.