Iterative Planning as a Holistic Framework for Production System-Wide Optimization Control Loops

The increasing number of Industry 4.0 services adds further complexity to software, enabling more control loops throughout the production system. To address the organizational and technological challenges under uncertain production conditions, this paper proposes a holistic framework for production planning. It consists of a software-oriented planning architecture and an iterative planning behavior that enables continuous adjustments based on the current state of the production system and products. Principles of organizational, multi-stage production planning and technological, zero-defect manufacturing are considered in combination. Necessary engineering services can be extended by automatically integrating self-describing software services into production system-wide engineering control loops. In a first implementation step, general functionality can be demonstrated by continuous production plan and process-program generation and adaptation with simulative validation for individually configurable products based on the production system state and target goals. The gap between organizational and technological planning is further closed.