A Service-Oriented Approach for the Cognitive Factory — A Position Paper

Contrary to former fears, factories will not be deserted in the foreseeable future. The challenge will be the development of digital approaches that assist human beings in manufacturing environments by processing the enormous amount of data available. The proposed approach allows the implementation of manufacturing functionalities based on artificial intelligence. The objective is to design a Cognitive Factory that is able to both reactively and proactively assist humans in complex manufacturing environments. To this purpose, a combination of the Digital Shadow concept and a Service-based Intelligence is presented.