Cyber-physical systems (CPS) in supply chain management: from foundations to practical implementation
Flavio Tonelli, Melissa Demartini, Massimo Pacella, Roberta Lala
Abstract
Since 2015 developments such as Industry 4.0 and cyber-physical production systems on the technology side, and approaches such as flexible and smart manufacturing systems hold great potential. These in turn give rise to special requirements that the production planning, control and monitoring, among others, needing a paradigm shift to exploit the full potential of these methods and techniques. Starting from foundations in Cyber Physical Systems (CPS), building upon definitions and findings reported by literature, a practical example of innovative Cyber Physical Supply Chain Planning System (CPS2) is provided. The paper clarifies the advantages of cyber-physical systems in the production planning, controlling and monitoring perspective with respect to manufacturing, logistics and related planning practices. A set of basic features of CPS2 systems are discussed and addressed by contextualizing service orientation architecture and microservices components with respect to supply chain management collaboration and cooperation practices. The identification of specific technologies behind those functions, within the developed research, provides some practical insight if the interesting CPS2 potential.