Manufacturing processes efficiency and flexible production systems : the role of CPS (Cyber Physical Systems) in the H2020 perspective

Nowadays, the economic downturn forces European companies to cut cost and enhances the performances of their processes to maintain the leadership and excellence in manufacturing. As they cannot compete anymore on workforce cost with eastern countries, the manufacturers have to focus in having more sustainable and efficient production systems. That is why, over the recent years, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) contribution to the manufacturing sector has become very important. By the use of ICT the efficiency and sustainability of production systems are improved. In addition, it enables industry to adapt to an increasingly globalized market, which requires a constant innovation in terms of production, process and output. In particular, the thesis, within the frame of sCorPiuS EC project, is going to focus in Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). A breakthrough research area that combines progress achieved by large computing systems on modeling, planning and prediction with the power of data that is produced during manufacturing processes by many small data driven devices enable by advanced communications and cognitive control systems. The expected result of CPS application, after finishing the complete sCorPiuS project are:  Increase capability for better and faster reaction to market changes by being able to use holistic global and local optimization algorithms in collaborative value chain.  Reduce complexity of production system by at least one order of magnitude through an interoperable de-centralized architecture approach and interoperability frameworks.  Productivity increase of about 30% through the enhanced utilization of resources and information taking a holistic view in a collaborative value chain.  Reinforced capacity to manufacture high-quality and innovative products and to penetrate new application areas.  Define how SMEs (small medium enterprise) could adopt and benefits from CPS. Thesis During the Thesis will be hold an extensive analysis of the current framework and state-of-the art of CPS technology, application in industry, supplier and users and how this would affect future manufacturing. sCorPiuS is structured in 5 work packages (WP): State of the Art of CPS in manufacturing, vision for the future role of CPS in manufacturing, roadmap for the next generation of CPS, communication dissemination and community building and project management. In our case, we will take part in the first two WP: WP1 and WP2. Within WP1 a deep analysis of the existing roadmaps and information acquisition from the field will be performed. The objective is to set a solid foundation for the adoption of CPS in manufacturing. Over WP2, divided again into two parts: T 2.1 and T 2.2, we will focus in T 2.1. Specifically, we will identify the gaps between the State of the Art and the real implementation, addressing future challenges CPS will need to overcome.