ICT supported lifecycle thinking and information integration for sustainable manufacturing

Information and communication technologies (ICT) are keys to manufacturing competence, competitiveness and jobs of modern industrialised countries. The trend is towards more customised, intelligent and networked products and systems, integrating intelligence in miniaturised smart product embedded information devices (PEID), such as RFID tags, embedded systems (including sensors) and standards. The overall goal of sustainable manufacturing is to obtain a holistic view of products’ lifecycle in the manufacturing industry and to optimise the life-cycle of product-service systems. In the coming years, the use of PEIDs will be extended from the current use in identification and logistics applications to a wider pallet of applications for manufacturing including real time visualisation and decision making. These wider applications include the involvement of consumers and users together with producers and service providers, beyond the traditional use of current product life-cycle management (PLM) solutions. This paper also describes the project PLANTCockpit for a production and logistics cockpit in manufacturing and specifically focuses on the proposed architecture and the novel concept of KPIs representation.