Contributions to Conferences

Intelligent Product States: Exploring the Synergy of Intelligent Products and State Characteristics in Collaborative Manufacturing

Abstract

Along its lifecycle, a product passes through several states, which can be described by their characteristics. This concept of product state characteristics can be utilized in manufacturing process chains to improve the process quality by e.g., increasing transparency. The basic approach of describing a product state by its state-characteristics can be transferred into a collaborative manufacturing environment, however, in that case, a performing communication structure is indispensable. The goal of this paper is to explore if this concept is applicable for Intelligent Products and to what extent they can contribute to facilitate this endeavor. Accordingly, the idea of Intelligent Product States is introduced, including Intelligent Products sensing their own current state, interacting with the process and / or other products in order to achieve better results (e.g., quality) for themselves or following generations of products. Concluding, a classification model is presented to introduce a first structure of characteristics describing the different levels of Intelligent Product States (IPS).