Modelling and orchestration of service-based manufacturing systems via skills

Shortening product lifecycles and small lot sizes require manufacturing systems to adapt increasingly fast. Many existing machine tools, handling and logistics systems are already generic and not bound to a specific product a-priori. Yet this flexibility and reconfigurability on the asset level is lost in automated systems that are limited to executing a small set of predefined actions in a fixed sequence. The SkillPro¹ project aims to develop a holistic service-oriented framework for modelling and orchestration of modern adaptable manufacturing systems. The core concept is a unified abstraction for manufacturing tasks: skills provided by the available assets and the requirements of the different production steps. The skill-based system model enables the transition from generic high-level descriptions to low-level formats that can be directly executed. Self-describing assets can be added, changed and removed at runtime, taking into account technical and economic conditions to best achieve the manufacturing goals.