Involving the Manufacturing System within its Planning Phase

Nowadays, manufacturing systems are equipped with a huge number of digital components. Along with the increasing computing power and connectivity, they are becoming more intelligent and can make decisions on their own. Amongst others, these tasks include the self-optimization and self-configuration of the production system. In addition, such cyber-physical production systems can contribute to the planning phase of a manufacturing system, e.g. when the production process must be adapted to a new product. However, neither appropriate means nor a practical mode of operation are available yet. Hence, it is unclear how manufacturing systems can work concurrently with humans in this phase of planning. Within this paper, we present a method of concurrent engineering that enables manufacturing systems to participate in the planning of production systems.