Industry 4.0 is the next developmental stage in the organisation of the manufacturing value chain. ICT-based systems will play a major role, mainly by creating a virtual copy of the physical world and facilitating decentralised structures through Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). DISRUPT aims to spearhead the transition to the next-generation manufacturing by facilitating the vision of a "Smart Factory". The new era of manufacturing requires flexible factories that can be quickly reprogrammed to provide faster time-to-market responding to global consumer demand, address mass-customisation needs and bring life to innovative products.
The traditional automation pyramid seems unable to accommodate this transformation. Through DISRUPT this pyramid will be disrupted by utilising the ICT capabilities to facilitate in-depth (self-)monitoring of machines and processes, provide decision support and decentralised (self-)adjustment of production, and foster the effective collaboration of the different IoT-connected machines with tools, services and actors. By doing so, the DISRUPT project will allow seamless communication of information and decisions from and to the plant floor and facilitate efficient interaction with value chain partners.
From a technological perspective, DISRUPT envisions each element of production to be controlled via the IoT by its virtual counterpart. The collected data will be analysed to detect complex events that trigger automated actions. By combining modelling, simulation and optimization, DISRUPT will enhance decision support over a secure and flexible "plug and play" platform that will allow engineers from different disciplines to collaborate in developing services. This cloud-based platform will eventually accommodate the anticipated high data volume and computational needs, while offering accessibility via any device anywhere in the world.
DISRUPT is an EU-funded project under the H2020-FOF-11-2016 topic on digital automation (Grant Agreement 723541) that started in September 2016 and will last for 36 months.