Industrie 4. 0 is the next evolutionary stage in the development of manufacturing in modern industrial companies. ICT-based systems will play a major role here, especially the creation of a virtual copy of the physical manufacturing environment and the implementation of so-called cyber-physical systems (CPS).

It is precisely in this area that the DISRUPT research project aims to advance the current state of the art with its vision of a smart factory.

Manufacturing companies of the future will need flexible factories that can be rapidly modified to respond quickly to changing customer demand through short time-to-market, as well as series production specifically tailored to the needs of individual customers.

This level of flexibility and control cannot be achieved with traditional optimization methods. This is where DISRUPT comes in – the research project aims to enable (self-)control of machines and processes, as well as to advance decentralized (self-)monitoring of manufacturing. This is to enable effective collaboration of the various IOT-connected machines with tools, services and people.

Overall, the DISRUPT project will promote seamless communication of information and decision-making on and with the factory floor and enable efficient interaction among value-added partners.

From a technological perspective, DISRUPT aims to make every element of a manufacturing environment controllable via the Internet of Things using its virtual counterpart. The data collected in the process is analyzed to discover complex relationships and respond to changes through automated actions.

By combining modeling, simulation and optimization, DISRUPT will provide decision support tools via a secure and flexible plug-and-play platform that will enable engineers from different disciplines to collaborate on projects.

The International Project Consortium includes the following partners:

• Arcelik A.S.
• Athens Technology Center SA
• Athens University of Economics and Business
• BOC Asset Management GMBH
• Centro Ricerche FIAT ScpA
• National Council of Research
• SimPlan AG
• Software AG
• University of Manchester