Reference architectures for smart manufacturing: A critical review

The demand for more personalized, smart, and sustainable products and the rapid growth of the industrial Internet and cyber-physical technologies have led to the development of several new paradigms for manufacturing in recent years. Examples include smart manufacturing, cyber-physical production systems, Industry 4.0, cloud manufacturing, and social manufacturing. This article questions the necessity of this 'multiplicity' of definitions and takes a systematic approach to portraying a consistent 'blueprint' (i.e., a reference architecture) that rationalizes and encompasses all of these different viewpoints and proposals. Through conceptual analysis of these new paradigms and several emerging reference architectures such as RAMI4.0, IIRA, IBM Industry 4.0, and NIST Smart Manufacturing, service-orientation was identified as the main theme: digitalization and integration of manufacturing resources on the IoT as on-demand services, as the main enabler of value network integration and collaboration as well as smart plug-and-produce shop-floor systems. The hypothesis was recast in terms of six propositions on the characteristics of smart manufacturing and evaluated through interviews with seven experts from industry, government, and standards organizations. The general hypothesis was accepted, and several recommendations were provided to address the identified design and implementation barriers. In conclusion, two high-priority actionable plans were identified: (1) modeling and composition of micro-services, and (2) optimizing the topology of interactions between micro-services, smart objects, and humans.