A structural analysis of emerging production systems

A cornerstone of modern production paradigms is the encapsulation of heterogeneity and system complexity. This functional encapsulation is supported by distinct architectural building blocks that once instantiated abstract, manage and control a specific system. Modern production approaches rely in semi hierarchical architectures to organize the interactions between these blocks. In runtime this specific structure promotes a self-organizing response resulting from concurrent interaction between the system´s components. This paper simulates the execution of processes in a network of mechatronic agents comprising products, processes´ abstractions and resources and analyses the impact of the typical network structure envisioned by modern production paradigms in respect to the time consumed in the production process.