Softbots 4.0: Supporting Cyber-Physical Social Systems in Smart Production Management
This paper presents the results of a research work that aimed at investigating the usage of softbots – as digital intelligent software assistants – as a supporting technology to help in excelling smart production management composed of cyber-physical systems (CPS). This work also attempts to differe...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Technical Sciences
2023-03-01
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| Series: | International Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.ijiemjournal.uns.ac.rs/images/journal/volume14/IJIEM_325.pdf |
| Summary: | This paper presents the results of a research work that aimed at investigating the usage of softbots
– as digital intelligent software assistants – as a supporting technology to help in excelling
smart production management composed of cyber-physical systems (CPS). This work also
attempts to differentiate the many equivalent terms used in the literature to softbots, trying
to demonstrate that all of them are just types of softbots. Softbots 4.0 acts as a smart humanmachine
interface, representing a digital virtual assistant to handle human-related issues when
implementing the concept of Operator 4.0. Yet, the concept of Softbot 4.0 is framed against
the RAMI 4.0 model in a way to show how it can also be taken as an (intelligent) manufacturing
entity. The main goal of Softbots 4.0 is to support the Operator 4.0 in interfacing with
smart machines, robots, and systems, aiding people in the automatic, planned or pro-active
execution of different, repetitive or complex tasks, efficiently in a more symbiotic human-machine
environment. Five different cases have been selected for the assessment, implemented
as software prototypes in different production management and shop floor control scenarios
close to real CPS. The high potential of the softbots approach could be observed, especially
when combined with other enabling technologies for Industry 4.0. A global assessment and
reflections on these experiments are discussed at the end. |
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| ISSN: | 2217-2661 2683-345X |