Adaptive Automation Solutions for Responsive Manufacturing Systems

Continuous changes in product demand and variety require new responsive factories capable to conjugate complex production processes and performance optimization along the value chain, with energy efficiency and environmental impact. In such a direction, a new generation of adaptive automation solutions represents a fundamental achievement, providing scalable, interoperable and self-adaptive control systems. The present work addresses such open problems, by means of a new platform for automation development, based on structured methodologies and simulation based verification methods, for the specification, design, automatic control code generation and real time solution validation. The proposed framework is discussed with reference to a real production pilot in the automotive sector, to demonstrate obtained results as for manufacturing systems responsiveness.