Service-oriented infrastructure at device level to implement agile factories

Contemporary industrial automation struggle to cope with the continuous demand for high quality customized products at low cost at the same time that production lifecycle history proves that unexpected behavior arises, equipment fails and requirements are constantly adjusted. All this denotes a permanent need to reengineer in an fast and transparent manner in order to truly implement an agile factory. The present work includes a reference architecture and device model that tries to exploit Internet-based business models alongside Service-oriented Architecture principles and technology to assist the systems integrator during lifecycle reengineering interventions. All architecture elements are portrayed according to their roles and specificity being mutually interoperable to allow a customized mould according to actual system requirements, constraints and goals. The proposed device model follows above architecture guidelines and it supports the enhancement of the overall system ability in terms of agility and openness by laying over open web standards. It allows the transparent deployment of new services besides built-in services that support the discovery, identification, configuration and monitoring of a particular device.