CPuS-IoT: A cyber-physical microservice and IoT-based framework for manufacturing assembly systems

Today's customers are characterized by individual requirements that lead the manufacturing industry to increased product variety and volume reduction. Manufacturing systems and more specifically assembly systems (ASs) should allow quick adaptation of manufacturing assets so as to respond to the evolving market requirements that lead to mass customization. Meanwhile, the manufacturing era is changing due to the fourth industrial revolution, i.e., Industry 4.0, that will change the traditional manufacturing environment to an IoT-based one. In this context, this paper introduces the concept of cyber-physical microservice in the Manufacturing and the ASs domain and presents the Cyber-Physical microservice and IoT-based (CPuS-IoT) framework. The CPuS-IoT framework exploits the benefits of the microservice architectural style and the IoT technologies, but also utilizes the existing in this domain huge investment based on traditional technologies, to support the life cycle of evolvable ASs in the age of Industry 4.0. It provides a solid basis to capture domain knowledge that is used by a model-driven engineering (MDE) approach to semi-automate the development, evolution and operation of ASs, as well as, to establish a common vocabulary for assembly system experts and IoT ones. The CPuS-IoT approach and framework effectively combines MDE with IoT and the microservice architectural paradigm. A case study for the assembly of an everyday life product is adopted to demonstrate the approach even to non-experts of this domain.