Towards modeling variability of products, processes and resources in cyber-physical production systems engineering

Planning and developing Cyber-Physical Production Systems (CPPS) are multi-disciplinary engineering activities that rely on effective and efficient knowledge exchange for better collaboration between engineers of different disciplines. The Product-Process-Resource (PPR) approach allows modeling products produced by industrial processes using specific production resources. In practice, a CPPS manufactures a portfolio of product type variants, i.e., a product line. Therefore, engineers need to create and maintain several PPR models to cover PPR variants and their evolving versions. In this paper, we detail a representative use case, identify challenges for using Variability Modeling (VM) methods to describe and manage PPR variants, and present a first solution approach based on cooperation with domain experts at an industry partner, a system integrator of automation for high-performance CPPS. We conclude that integrating basic variability concepts into PPR models is a promising first step and describe our further research plans to support PPR VM in CPPS.