Automated production of individualized products for teaching I4.0 concepts

Many trends, such as cyber-physical systems, Internet of Things or digital twins are currently predominant in research and development. However, the teaching and training of these topics is often neglected. Especially, students or participants of a training course cannot develop and apply new technologies on their own. In order to meet this demand, this paper presents an approach that segments an automated production system into modules. The complexity of the system can be varied depending on the needs of the students or participants. With this, classical automation topics as well as state-of-the-art topics can be touched and trained. Additionally, the concept is designed in such a way that it is not only applicable in university education, but also that individual topics can be taught in half-day or one-day seminars with appropriate previous experience.