End-to-End Production Process Orchestration for Smart Printing Factories: An Application in Industry

Media production printing is following the Industry 4.0 era developments, towards the concept of smart printing factory. There, printers, post-processing machinery, media and product handling robots, automated guided vehicles and human operators shall be integrated in a seamless way for achieving higher production rates in a more efficient way, in a safe and ergonomic working environment. This integration of the various actors and the orchestration of their activities can be enabled by a process management system. This paper presents such a Printing Process Management System (PPMS), based on Business Process Management (BPM) technologies, that models and enacts end-to-end activities in a print shop. PPMS is a core information system of a cyber-physical system (CPS) for direct control of devices and humans in a smart production printing environment. It was implemented and demonstrated in the European EIT OEDIPUS 1 project for a major international printing technology provider, proving feasibility and giving insights into how BPM concepts and tools can be applied in smart printing factories.