And in industry 4.0 the “backbone” of management and control remains the effective management of work processes. But the achievement of the quality “intelligence” of management is already based on the interaction between participants in the work process with a high level of autonomous behavior. This leads to the decentralization of the organization of production configurations, in which the presence of different sensors far exceeds the level of conventional industrial automation. Thus, it is necessary to achieve higher levels of solving two problems which are not new but are of increased complexity:
- Complicated cooperation between participants in the work process
- Diversity of the protocols of data trade when cooperating i.e. presence of exit
With the means of Unified Platform for Innovations (UPI) not only meets the requirements of conventional industrial automation, but also successfully solves these two problems. This is illustrated by the following diagram:
Each of the participants in the work process as well as their production configurations are presented in the UPI-environment with a corresponding Community Object. The connection with the participants themselves is made through the respective infrastructure object. With this type of UPI-resource the support of different communication protocols is carried out as the transferred data are transformed into their UPI-representation, set with the respective UPI-models. This ensures Semantic Interoperability (SOC) in the configuration of UPI-based systems.
The production technology embedded in the work processes is transformed into a sequence of interactions between the participants in the processes. This requires that such network organization of interaction is adequately represented in workflow management. The UPI environment incorporates the Semantic Network Based Architecture (SNBA) which provides such presentation.
The work processes in the industry are extremely diverse, which requires solving specific problems in their automation:
- Full coverage of the technological diversification of the work processes
Technological diversity requires easy modeling of different work processes in a way as close as possible to the form of technological descriptions, which is used by technologists in their practical work. The UPI environment provides means to solve this problem because data, concepts and their processing in it are supported together with their models i.e., with their descriptions.
- Reflecting the specifics of cyber-physical systems
UPI-tools allow this modern name of systems managing physical objects to be extended to the possibility of building a system of systems. The specific problem in this case comes down to the existence of autonomy behavior in both physical objects and external systems. The solution to the problem requires maintaining the status of controlled/monitored physical objects and external systems, which in management theory is realized through the so called “”.
In the UPI environment states and transitions between them are very easily registered through models of state machines such as “Moore”, “Miles” or with a mixed configuration. Their UPI-realization replaces the abstract theory with useful and understandable for the production practice solutions of the management of physical objects and external systems.
- Reflecting the priority characteristics of managed objects and systems
The management of physical objects introduces work in real time. This requires the introduction of priority characteristics of the generation of managerial influences. In UPI-environment, this is easily ensured for the operation of the management system as a whole and for the behavior of each participant in the work processes covered by it.
- Traceability of activities
Workflow descriptions in UPI environments are not interpreted directly. They automatically create tasks fir the implementation of actions by the participants in them. The actions themselves are independent information objects and can be related both to a specific processed detail and the machine on which the action was performed as well as to a worker who controlled / observed the operation of the machine. In addition, registered actions can be classified according to any other characteristics, and in case of problems with their implementation, the classification can be performed on non-formalized grounds.
A wide range of means for registration of the work done is a powerful tool for corrective and preventive measures in quality control. At the same time, complete pictures of the activities of workers, teams, machines, managers and other aspects of the work process are flexibly maintained.
- Integration with other systems
The integration of UPI-based systems with external systems in generally embedded in the very vision of these systems. But in this case it is necessary to indicate the possible integration with Smart DOCMAN system. Such integration is most effective because it can be done in the UPI-environment itself. The end result is integrated management of work processes in production and administration.
- Independent development of UPI-based systems
The acquisition of a UPI-based system can be combined with the acquisition of the right to its independent development and/or modernization. This is easy to implement because the UPI approach to building systems makes optimal use of the decentralization of software implementation.
The same approach is applied when creating new functions or changing existing ones. Models of new objects and the respective program code for their maintenance and/or interaction with the other objects in the system are created. In this process it is necessary ONLY to get acquainted with the UPI-tools for creating new objects and to know the interface only of the available objects with which the newly created ones will interact.