Integrating Variability Modeling of Products, Processes, and Resources in Cyber-Physical Production Systems Engineering

The Industry 4.0 initiative envisions the flexible and optimized production of customized products on Cyber-Physical Production Systems (CPPSs) that consist of subsystems coordinated to conduct complex production processes. Hence, accurate CPPS modeling requires integrating the modeling of variability for Product-Process-Resource (PPR) aspects. Yet, current variability modeling approaches treat structural and behavioral variability separately, leading to inaccurate CPPS production models that impede CPPS engineering and optimization. This paper proposes a PhD project for integrated variability modeling of PPR aspects to improve the accuracy of production models with variability for CPPS engineers and production optimizers. The research project follows the Design Science approach aiming for the iterative design and evaluation of (a) a framework to categorize currently incomplete and scattered models and methods for PPR variability modeling as a foundation for an integrated model; and (b) a modeling approach for more accurate integrated PPR variability modeling. The planned research will provide the Software Product Line (SPL) and CPPS engineering research communities with (a) novel models, methods, and insights on integrated PPR variability modeling, (b) open data from CPPS engineering use cases for common modeling, and (c) empirical data from field studies for shared analysis and evaluation.