56 Comprehensive Function Models for the Management of Heterogeneous Industrial Networks as an Enabler for Interoperability

The future of the industrial sector relies on the viability of the evolution towards the digital factory proposed by the platform Industrie 4.0. This digital factory requires the interoperability in a heterogeneous landscape of network technologies. The concept proposed here is the use of the comprehensive function models for the management of heterogeneous industrial networks as core of the holistic network management system that can guarantee the interoperability in the business processes of the future industrial sector. The roadmap to evolve from legacy industrial systems to future-ready productive environments is indispensable to guarantee the success of this evolution.

56.1. Problem formulation

The current industrial production plant evolution is tending to a more flexible and interconnected production environment. This trend is one of the reasons for the existence and one of the aims of the platform “Industrie 4.0” [BMW 15]. The use of new technologies like data analytics and of approaches like plug and produce demands the integration of heterogeneous network technologies [WOL 17]. This integration can be solved at different levels.

Typically, a person provides interoperability to heterogeneous systems that are working together. The person managing the different systems is aware of the application relations that are needed to let the system work ...

Get Enterprise Interoperability: Smart Services and Business Impact of Enterprise Interoperability now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.