A STEP compliant knowledge based schema to support shop-floor adaptive automation in dynamic manufacturing environments

On the factory shop-floor adaptive automation and scheduling plays a sensitive role for production systems’ agility, representing the soft layer between the factory physical resources and business processes. A fundamental requirement for adaptive shop-floor solutions is to incorporate a data structure that comprehensively integrates product, process and physical resource information. This paper presents a novel data structure entitled SKEM – STEP compliant Knowledge Engine for Manufacturing, conceived as an abstract, extensible, scalable, multi-granular, integrated and evolving platform. A software tool based on SKEM is tested through a case study to illustrate the benefits of its application for a dynamic manufacturing factory environment.